An opera that pulses with the heart of tango

She was “born on a day when God was drunk.” Madonna and whore, she is the title character of the only opera by the creator of the “new tango,” the late Argentine Astor Piazzolla. Written in 1968 with his countryman the poet Horacio Ferrer, “Maria de Buenos Aires” has also been called a “tango operita” -- a little opera.

Part music, part movement, part spiritual pilgrimage, this two-hour cross between dance drama and cabaret, which doesn’t call for operatic voices, blends smoldering sensuality and poetic grace. It will receive a rare U.S. staging Saturday and June 19 when Long Beach Opera mounts two performances at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach.

“It’s a multilayered story about Buenos Aires, tango and love,” says Andreas Mitisek, 39, Long Beach Opera’s new general director, who spent part of his first season at the helm trekking through Buenos Aires nightclubs in search of the perfect Maria. Eventually it was Ferrer, still active at 71, who recommended a rising tango singing star, 23-year-old Noelia Moncada.

“She’s still kind of a girl, but with a mature voice. It’s the ‘Lolita’ effect,” explains Mitisek, who will be playing piano and leading an onstage 10-piece ensemble for the Long Beach staging. “I went to hear her in one of those great tango shows, and she came across very adult, with a great deal of depth.”

None of this would have occurred if Ferrer, as a teenager in 1948, hadn’t screwed up his courage and introduced himself to the 27-year-old Piazzolla, who was playing bandoneon, the distinctive tango accordion, in a Buenos Aires cafe. (He died in 1992.)

“I told him that I loved him very, very much and that I knew all his music,” Ferrer recalled recently, speaking through a translator by phone from the Argentine capital. “He later went to Paris, and when he came back by ship in 1955, I was waiting for him at the port of Montevideo. Soon afterward, I lived with him for a month, talking about tango and art.

“And fishing,” Ferrer added with a laugh, “because we both liked fishing.”

In subsequent years, Ferrer wrote program notes for some of Piazzolla’s albums and became an expert in the history of the tango. (He has written several books on the subject, including a three-volume, 2,000-page work.) Then, in 1965, he published his first book of poetry, which included a poem dedicated to his friend, and sent a copy to him.

“Piazzolla said, ‘Horacio, what you do with poetry is what I do in music. That’s why I want us to work together.’ ”

The composer asked Ferrer to write a show combining recitation with instrumental interludes and songs, and the poet responded with “Maria de Buenos Aires.” In the allegorical story, which is reminiscent of Latin American magical realism, Maria leaves the sticks for the big city and plunges into decadence and prostitution, only to die and return to Earth in the form of a wandering shadow. Ferrer says his Maria is many things, including an embodiment of Argentina’s chief metropolis.

“Buenos Aires is a feminine city, a female city,” he said, “and Maria is life itself -- she is tango. She’s a superwoman. Religion appears because religion is part of life, as is prostitution.”

Ferrer also wrote himself into the libretto as the narrating Goblin, an observer and reporter who offers glimpses into the darker side of the Argentine psyche. (There’s even a circus-like scene with babbling psychoanalysts, though Ferrer says neither he nor Piazzolla was ever in therapy.) The poet has performed the role himself several times, though scheduling conflicts prevented him from coming to Long Beach to do it.

For this production, in Spanish with supertitles, London-based director John Lloyd Davies, working closely with choreographer Nicola Bowie, has fashioned a set resembling a chessboard. On it, three male dancers interact with Moncada’s Maria and tenor Richard Miro (assaying several roles, including a street singer and a psychoanalyst). The five demonstrate dance styles that include not only the tango but also ballroom and neo-salsa moves.

“This is like a collage piece -- a mixture of spoken text, danced sections and singing rather than an evening of tango numbers,” says Lloyd Davies, 44, who is making his U.S. debut with the production. “Maria is one woman, but she is everybody and everything. She’s like Don Giovanni, who is aspects of different men who are seducers, because within herself she contains all sorts of different stories.

“Although Maria is not a holy and good person,” the director continues, “she has a religious meaning to her life by being dedicated to dance and music.”

The Argentine Moncada, whose dark mane of hair frames a striking, angelic face, began dancing the tango at 10 and singing tango tunes three years later. Although she too is making her U.S. debut in Long Beach, she insists, through a translator, that she is not nervous.

“This is my first experience dancing, singing and acting in one performance,” she says. “But I’m ready for it. I feel I parallel Maria’s life. I came to Buenos Aires from another place, and I identify with the story of the tango. Horacio says, ‘You are Maria,’ and he is my Goblin in real life.”

As for Mitisek, he’ll take a Goblin over more standard operatic fare any day.

“I’m glad ‘Figaros’ are out there and someone does it, but not me,” says the Austrian, whose decision to stage “Maria” jibes with the 26-year-old Long Beach company’s reputation for risk-taking. “Piazzolla took the tango and did what Gershwin did with jazz. He combined it with classical forms; he wrote fugues in tango. Add Ferrer’s language and it opens the door to a different, passionate world that we maybe all would like to have.”

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‘Maria de Buenos Aires’

Where: Long Beach Opera at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach

When: Saturday, 8 pm.; June 19, 2 p.m.

Price: $55-$110

Contact: (562) 439-2580