Sex and violence, mystery and libraries

With his Quebec City-based trio Tango Boréal Denis Plante has brought authentic tango, learned at the source in Buenos Aires, to the Great White North. His marvellous new opéra-tango is called La Bibliothèque Interdite (The Forbidden Library). It's based on the poetry, stories and life of Jorge Luis Borges, as well as the poetic tango lyrics of Enrique Santos Discépolo and Roberto Arlt.

The connection between Borges and libraries is one that runs through his whole adult life, from his early experience working in a suburban Buenos Aires public library branch to his ascension as the Director of Argentina's National Library. Borges is for me, and for many librarians like me, the modern version of St. Jerome, a patron saint of libraries and librarians. Themes of total libraries and human libraries and infinite libraries run through his writings, along with his stock company of tigers and minotaurs, mirrors and mazes, and tango. For Borges the tango was both an expression of national character and the mystery, sex and violence he loved in ancient epics and sagas, detective stories and films noirs. "The sexual nature of the tango has often been noted," Borges writes in his 1955 essay A History of the Tango, "but not so its violence."

Borges' manuscript for La Biblioteca Total, 1931 

Plante takes this heady mixture and distills it down to a one hour, one-act opera set in Buenos Aires in 1940 that's musically and dramatically vivid and atmospheric. Plante's story is of a poet working as a concierge in a mysterious library who is abducted by a character from one of his own seditious tangos. Besides Borges, this clever tale is in the tradition of both Latin American magic realists as well as French and Italian experimental writers such as Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino. The music is, of course, well in hand, with Plante's bandonéon, the guitar and charango of David Jacques and Ian Simpson's bass. The other key to its success is the singer, actor and activist Sébastien Ricard, whose performance in the lead role here is quite stunning. This is so much more than a mere parody of Carlos Gardel, but an authentic re-creation of the classic genre in a modern, global context. The anti-Fascist message in the work is much more than mere history, but has a chilling relevance in the world of today, sadly including even something as close to home as the massacre in Quebec City's Sainte-Foy neighborhood on January 29, 2017.

Tangos in an ice storm

From September 30, 2010:

Opposites attract. That's one explanation for the odd connections between the music of Latin America and music enthusiasts in subarctic places. Tropical music of all kinds has had an amazing uptake in Scandanavia, for example, and the music of Villa-Lobos looms large in chilly Alberta. And one of the world's greatest Bandoneon performers & composers makes his home in Quebec.

Denis Plante's original compositions use traditional forms in original ways. Plante is described as "a spiritual son of Astor Piazzolla", and from start to finish the new disc Tango Boreal bears this out. The elements of jazz and Baroque music that Piazzolla melded to traditional tango to create "Nuevo Tango" are important parts of Plante's musical upbringing. The Argentine roots of this music are clear, but I'm thinking as well that Plante sometimes incorporates folk traditions closer to his Quebec home.

Plante's interesting and enlightening liner notes mention that his first tango compositions were written at the time of the famous Ice Storm that hit Quebec in 1998. That brings this world-spanning music into focus.

Denis Plante's playing, on an ancient and very special instrument akin to the one played by Piazzolla himself, is completely assured, and ably supported by guitarist David Jacques and bassist Ian Simpson.