![]() ![]() ![]() "La Fiesta" provides some light comedy (it's an instrumental, but with reveling voices in the background) before the couple's son Ramiro is born. "Manuela" is the closest the entire LP comes to straight-ahead salsa, followed by themes for Carmelo the husband and then Manuela the wife, Blades' own mother, Anoland Diaz, taking the vocals for Manuela (who joins her son in a warm duet). The five-minute "Prólogo" introduces the story with an orchestral fanfare and a beginning narration that places the characters in their context. One of the first (and only) salsa operas, Maestra Vida introduced the characters Carmelo and Manuela, a couple whose story, as the narration suggests, could be the story of innumerable descendants of the musicians who appear here. By 1980, Rubén Blades had been a working-class hero for nigh on ten years, singing of everyday life in classics like "Pedro Navaja," but with help from Willie Colón, the two-part epic Maestra Vida ties music and narrated drama like nothing else in his catalog.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |