Amelita Baltar

“Balada para un loco' was made to measure”

When she started to stand out as a folk singer, Astor Piazzolla chose here as a performer and muse for years. Now that she has returned to the national scene along with Marikena Monti and Susana Rinaldi, she says “Balada para un loco” is a tailor-made suit. 

“Ya sé que estoy piantao…”, [I know I’m madly in love] mused this lady 40 years ago, who was immediately chosen by the working partnership Astor Piazzolla-Horacio Ferrer as a referential performer of their emblematic inventions. Amelita Baltar knows it, even after so much time passed Astor was the man of her life, not only for their romantic attachment for eight years, but also for transplanting her from Argentine folk music to tango, without resolving the question of continuity.
Tall, slim and with that typical timbre in her voice that made her famous, the singer who came back in 2009 to sing with Marikena Monti and Susana Rinaldi in “Tres mujeres para el show”, in “Clásica y Moderna”, spoke to La Milonga Argentina about politics, her return to the stage and her love-hate relationship with the “father of the tango avant-garde”... 

- Was 2009 a busy year?
- Between the show with Susana and Marikena and the anniversary of “Balada…” it was tough. What’s more, the girls and I used to meet up to chat because we had to stay up-to-date with things, because that show isn’t about three women who go out, sing and that’s it, but rather we have to be very together and with the empathy that was always there. In reality, except for politics, we understand each other in everything.

- Do you have many differences in politics?
- Yes, the girls are very different, I’m a “radish” [of the Radical party] at heart,  which is stronger than me. I adored Alfonsín, I hope the party will return to his position because I carry him in my soul.

- And Cobos, how does he seem?
- Not much. It musst be the provincial idiosyncrasy that makes him more cautious, I’m not saying better or worse. We’ve never spoken, but many things are needed to be perfectly suited and to find all that in a politician. These days it’s tough for people who’ve already been through life, like me, because we end up asking if we’ll ever see something worthy again.

- How has the fall-off in tourism affected your show at Clásica y Moderna?
-There are very few tourists, a large percentage of those who come are old people. One day I mentioned it to Susana, because it attracted my attention: “It looks like the OAP’s outing,” I said to her, we could tell it was people who had already seen us 37 years ago and now they’re reliving the experience. It’s very emotional for everyone.

- Do you all feel well-treated by the press?
- Yes, very much respected for what we are after so many years.

- Respect is not a lesser word…
- Obviously, it has to do with dignity. If there’s one thing that we all three share is that we’re dignified women, we haven’t made concessions in our careers and we are very careful of what we do.

- And how do your younger colleagues treat you all?
- The young people who don’t respect any of us are the death of tango. I’ve had contact with new young singers whom I’ve pointed out one little thing to, and they end up paying attention to me.

- How do you see then professionally?
- I think some singer have only one thing in their favor, which sometimes goes against them: they have a huge voice and an enormous tessitura, and there are times when they’re singing something and they want to show it, and tango isn’t like that, it’s more reflexive, more hushed. there are words that have to be said as if in secret.

- Is that the difference between a singer and a performer?
- Yes, you can’t be imposing all the time.

- But are there new performers?
- Yes there are. Marcelo Tommasi for example, I like him a lot because he doesn’t show off and he sings well. Also Noelia Moncada or Claudia Pannone. When they say to me: “Ah, but the thing is, working in tango venues ruins my voice because they play the music loud and I have to raise my voice”, I say to them, “Take the microphone away from your mouth and sing softly.”

“Astor is a genius, there’ll never be another like him”

- Have you ever worked in tango venues?
- No, because to do that it would have to be a place that shared my ideas. I don’t care much for the export business and at those places the singer have to perform the four or five songs that tourists like and at full blast. I’d like to have a place in a company, but not every night, it would have to be for a lot of money, to be able to afford a daily spa treatment. (Laughter).

- And the milonga, do you go?
- I feel embarrassed, if I could wear a disguise I’d be happy. Watch out though, I don’t dance very well, but if someone who knows gets hold of me and leads me, I can. I love it if some handsome gentleman is leading me.

- Didn’t Astor dance?
- No! He had two left feet.

- You miss him a lot…
- The other day they were asking me what I’d want of Piazzolla. And I said: “for him to return for one month to play”, above all for the youngsters who were never able to see him and who only know him for what they hear and the videos. Astor isn’t avant-garde: he’s a genius. And we’ll never have anything like him. He could do everything, he was a wide-ranging musician, who indulged himself writing grand concertos and the simplest of songs, like “Chiquilín de bachín”.

- Did they imagine they were making a landmark in that era?
- I think they showed us more in Europe. Yesterday I was listening to “Libertango” by Pablo Agri’s orchestra, I’ve known him since he was born, and at one point Pablo said to me: “You’ve got this, haven’t you?” so then I remembered that Astor composed it in Rome, and at that time I felt it was deafening me because he played it a thousand and one times until he finished it, so I’d grab the dog and go out all afternoon.

- How was it when he gave you the “Amelitango”?
- One day we were in Rome and he said to me: “Here, take this, it’s for you,” later on they made him change the name. All the same, that doesn’t bother me at all, he dedicated it to me and that’s it.

- What was the best and the worst you experienced with Piazzolla?
- The best was the love, although it wasn’t an era when twenty-something year-old girls went out with men of forty-something. He invited me to events because he said he didn’t want to go on his own, until a huge tenderness began to be born in me. I loved him a lot, but I think he never realized. He loved me a great deal, until he died I think, and that’s why he hated me so much, because you can’t hate someone until the final breath unless you love them. “Dedé” (Wolf, his first wife), told me a while back: “Although I wanted him to leave you so that he’d come back to me, I ended up accepting that you were the great love of Astor’s life”.. He was the man of my life.

- Many people feel you’re “the widow” of Astor…
- After many years, everyone was giving me their condolences. 

- Didn’t you ever think of having a child with him?
- He didn’t want to… I prefer not to talk about it.

- How many years were you together?
- Eight. We finished, a bit because he started to get very possessive.

- His black sense of humor is well-known!
- Yes! He lived doing practical jokes, he drove me crazy, he’d put brushes in the bed, but he didn’t like it if anyone did anything to him. I remember one day he was going to Rosario and he trod on a snake, he picked it up and put it in the bed of Héctor de Rosas in the hotel. He was terrible.

- How did the duo work with Ferrer?
- When they were writing, everything was fine. 

- And how did he receive negative criticism?
- It really bothered him, with time I realized that if he hadn’t received those criticisms and hadn’t got so angry, as he was a real Italian in that sense, he wouldn’t have done the brilliant things he did.

- There are hundreds of versions of “Balada para un loco”, but yours has something special.
- It’s that they’re tailor-made to suit me, the song’s like mine. I can sing it with the same keenness and the same emotion as always.

- Did you ever think of giving up singing?
- No, although I’m a person who suffers a lot from this profession. A few moments before singing I can’t get my breath, I feel panic. Once I’m out onstage it all changes.

Florencia Guerrero y Silvia Rojas – Fotos / Photos: Alejandra Marín