SPECIAL TANGOWOMAN BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Teresa and Camilo Franco, after a successful eight-year migratory adventure in Buenos Aires introducing machinery to manufacture pasta, returned to their beloved Milano in 1928. There their only daughter was born. They named her América, Mérica, Meri, because the fascist laws forbade them to name her Justice or Liberty as they would have liked. Then as life for those who were regarded as belonging to the opposition was unbearable, the Francos decided to come back to Argentina and they embarked on the Conte Verde ocean liner with the two-year-old girl. In Buenos Aires they settled in the neighborhood of Congreso, together with the family of the well-known pianist Roberto Locatelli. Two years later, when they settled in Uruguay, the Francos frequently returned to the other river bank, so that the doors of that porteña house were never closed.

In Uruguay, Meri experienced a situation of original and unrepeatable cultural effervescence, she took part in the multiple public institutions that were appearing, studied with exceptional teachers, gained experience on radio and journalism, becoming a thorough exponent of what was known as «critic generation», of which she will always give testimony in her long career in music (as concert pianist, musicologist and educator) and in literature. Never avoiding to express, in any front, her civic feelings and her «Argentine» humor.

And tango? Her adolescence coincided with its golden age. “Malena”, “Ninguna” and, of course, “Catorce primaveras” were released in 1942 when Meri was 14. She played it by ear, with her schoolmates in high school she used to share tango lyrics, and began to dance it at the Club Social y Cultural Atahualpa. Some other summer she watched the rehearsals of Juan D’Arienzo at the Hotel Oceanía, and remembers having interchanged some fingering tricks for the keyboard with the pianist Fulvio Salamanca. Frequently, with her family and friends, she used to have lunch at a restaurant at the Barra de Santa Lucía which was run by Mario Fattori and his wife Isabel del Valle, who had been the «eternal girlfriend» of Carlos Gardel.

In 1953, like so many intellectuals of Latin America, she made the classic travel to Paris. Her concert impresario is Tristan Richepin, grandson of the poet Jean Richepin, the academician that on October 25, 1913, at the Sorbonne, celebrated tango with a speech that would bring worldwide consecration to the River Plate genre. Because of her book “Basta! Chants de témoignage et de révolte de l’Amérique Latine”, published in Paris in 1967 by François Maspero (reissued by Ediciones Era of Mexico and Jaca Book of Milan in 1970 and 1976), she was invited to Cuba where she stayed almost three years working at the ICR and teaching music applied to animation movies at the ICAIC. In the Casa de las Américas she left a compilation of protest songs, among which is the tango “Bronca”, by Rivero and Battistella; with the journalist Carlos Núñez and the violinist Federico Britos she gave a four-day seminar which was attended massively by the tango fans who are radio listeners, an amazing event in the Caribbean island.

Books and articles.- Meri’s first book about the River Plate genre, “Tempo di tango” (Bompiani, Milano, 1975), which turns out to be the first one published abroad, was an unexpected boom and spread like an epidemic. The most distinguished critics wrote extreme reviews and famous actors quoted it and read some of its passages on radio and TV (such as Ave Ninchi).

Astor Piazzolla, who by that time lived in Rome, and confessing his enthusiasm for Meri’s approach about his oeuvre, did not miss an occasion to recommend it, while he was having fun in getting past the teasing number about Rodolfo Valentino in the movie “Ritmo de tango” he was shooting; thereafter he asked Meri to write the comments for his concert programs («Otherwise, someone who knows nothing about music will write a bunch of silly things»).

Meri is invited by Italian universities to give seminars about tango, from which derives a true avalanche of doctorate theses inspired on chapters of the book, like: “El tango en la literatura y la literatura en el tango”, “Minga de retorno”, “El habla italiana en el lunfardo”, “Recurrencia del verbo “volver” en las cartas de los inmigrados y en las letras del tango”, “Cuadro comparativo entre tango y jazz”, etc. The book was published in Buenos Aires by Anesa (with plenty of cuts and censorship regarding political aspects), but in Italy, being a work of testimony, research and introspection, critic and self-criticism, it periodically reappears in different versions, from “Voglia di tango” (Sugarco, Milán 1986), to “T come tango Un invito a muoversi al di là degli stereotipi” (Melusina, Roma, 1996), to “Todo Tango, Croniche di una lunga convivenza” (Bompiani, Milán, 2004), with 150 lyrics and their translation into Italian, complete international filmography, a chapter “Con beneficio de inventango” which describes mistakes, clichés, commonplaces, absurdities. Besides hundreds of articles like “Entrevista imposible a Carlos Gardel”, “Tango y Desaparecidos”, and the column “Tango della settimana” of the satirical supplement of the “L’Unità” journal founded by the graphic humorist Sergio Staino.

On the front cover of her last essay we find an Umberto Eco’s statement: «Meri Lao has devoted her life to tango. Maybe a life is not enough, but it is the one that has always told us best that magnificent epopee».

To ponder her extraordinary labor of diffusion of tango and Latin American song in general, let us remember that only in 1984 the Segovia and Orezzoli company arrived in Europe with their stunning show “Tango Argentino”, which triggered worldwide the interest in dancing and the subsequent appearance of associations and schools where it is taught and practiced.

Needless to say that Meri is regarded as an unavoidable reference by those Italian associations. In 1994 she was appointed corresponding academician by the Academia Nacional del Tango de Buenos Aires. In 1995 she founded, with Román Gubern, in the Instituto Cervantes of Rome, the Scientific Academy of Tango and Bolero in Italy. In 2001 she was awarded the Premio Tenco for her cultural work in Latin American song; in 2007, the Premio Musica Europa for her career at the Versilia Jazz Festival. She is foreign advisor in international appearances of the Fundación Astor Piazzolla.

I came to know personally Meri Lao at the International Colloquium of Tango held at the EHESS, in Paris, in October 2011. Her talk about “Orígenes olvidados del tango” (Forgotten origins of tango) charmed the audience. It is worthwhile remembering that this manifold author is also an internationally renowned mermaidnologist and that her latest work is “Dizionario maniacale del sette” (707 entries, from Boeing 777 to the 7 wonders, from the 7 capital sins to James Bond, the agent 007). With her tireless and infectious vitality (not in vain she has been practicing yoga since her teen years), Meri is always willing to travel around the world with her chats full of information to make us discover incredible material, widen links and cultivate permanent friendships.

Some pieces she composed: “Tangata barocca” (instrumental, a mixture with J.S.Bach’s music), “Ranatango” (with bilingual lyrics), “La mujer que no tiene hombre” (tango-congo commissioned by Fellini for the scene of the party in the movie “La città delle donne”).

Shows: “Tangonero” (co-written with Giorgio Belledi) musical staged in 1980 by the Compagnia del Collettivo di Parma, with Pina Bausch as distinguished spectator; “Tangare humanum est, nueve escenas para montar una comedia musical”; “Tanghitudine (Tanguitud), one woman show”, always changing scenes that for twelve years Meri herself presented onstage in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, Sweden and the United States; “Tango & Café con pan”, didactic, burlesque monologue for singer/actress, dedicated to her music and theater students who were around six thousand.

Estela Telerman is pianist, educator, diffuser of Argentina music, and columnist in www.diariodecultura.com.ar