'Opera do malandro' by Chico Buarque is renewed with bright colors in a production that mixes Umbanda, Anitta and clown theater

José Loreto plays the trickster of Chico Buarque's opera in Jorge Farjalla's production Adriano Dória / Disclosure ? THEATER MUSICAL CRITICAL Title: Opera do malandro Dramaturgy: Chico Buarque Director: Jorge Farjalla Rating: ? ? ? ? ? Director with strong paints, Jorge Farjalla gives bright colors to one of the most revisited texts by Chico Buarque, “Ópera do malandro” (1978), running from Thursday to Sunday at Teatro Multiplan, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), until August 30, after completing a successful season in São Paulo (SP). Inspired by the narrative of “The Threepenny Opera” (1928), written by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956) with music by Kurt Weill (1900 – 1950) and based on the “Opera dos Mendigons” (1728), an original creation by the English playwright John Gay (1685 – 1732), Chico Buarque's text is all there. However, the text reappears renewed by subtexts and references from clown theater, Afro-Brazilian religions – precisely the umbanda of the exus evoked in the Farjalla scene – and even Anitta, whose emblematic funk “Vai malandra” (2017) is embedded in the potpourri of the opening in which the cast mixes “O malandro” (1978) – Chico's version of “Mack the knife” (1928), the theme of original opera by Brecht and Weill – and “A volta do malandro” (1985), the theme of the film adapted from the theater musical. Located in Chico in Lapa, a neighborhood with a high concentration of Rio's rascals, the plot of “Opera do Malandro” reappears on the scene without a defined time, but always current because it portrays the banditry in force in Brazil since samba has been samba. In the scene populated by pimps and corrupt police officers, executioners of prostitutes (symbols of the oppressed people in Chico's narrative), banditry is represented both by the pimp couple Fernandes de Duran (Edgar Bustamante) and Vitória (Totia Meirelles) and – in a more popular lineage – by the protagonist Max Overseas Navalha, a character entrusted to José Loreto (in the Rio season, actor Tiago Barbosa alternates with Loreto in the title role of the opera). Loreto's selection turns out to be the right one. Solar, charismatic and seductive, José Loreto has Max's verve and makes the character's alluring trickery credible in a performance so captivating that it redeems him from his vocal inability to sing a song as heartbreaking as “Pedaço de mim” (1978), a song entrusted to the actor in the final moments of the play. By the way, the soundtrack for “Ópera do malandro” is the best ever produced for a musical in Brazilian theater. The soundtrack's phenomenal set of songs crosses generations with the power to attract listeners inside and outside the scene. Overall, the cast honors this songbook, starting with the two actresses and (great) singers who play Terezinha and Lúcia, rivals in the fight for Max's heart and body. Terezinha is Carol Costa, interpreter of the song entitled “Terezinha” (1977) – and presented in the voice of Maria Bethânia a year before the original staging of “Ópera do malandro” in a recording made for the album “Pássaro da Morning” (1977) – and “Tatuagem” (1973), a previous song from the soundtrack of the play “Calabar – O praise da madness” (1973), by Chico Buarque and Ruy Guerra. “Tatuagem” appears in a scene collaged with “Atrás da porta” (Francis Hime and Chico Buarque, 1972), another song prior to the opera and incorporated by Farjalla into the production’s soundtrack, in a number heard in the voice of Marya Bravo. An actress and singer with abundant vocal skills, Bravo is also the performer of “Palavra de Mulher” (1985), a later song made for the film “Ópera do malandro” and since then associated with the character Lúcia in the theater. The duet between Carol Costa and Marya Bravo in the bolero “O meu amor” – a standard that went beyond the limits of the scene when recorded by the recurring Maria Bethânia with Alcione on the album “Álibi” (1978) – sounds equally chilling. A few numbers earlier, Totia Meirelles had confirmed the notorious vocal category by giving voice to “Uma song desnaturada” (1978) in a breathtaking number. However, nothing stands out more in the opera updated by Farjalla – with exuberant costumes in which red predominates in the bright color palette – than the singing of “Geni and the Zeppelin” by Valéria Barcellos, a trans actress who gives life, voice, soul and tears to Geni, the transvestite humiliated by everyone in the play's power play. Symbolizing the resistance of the LGBTQIA+ population marginalized by society, the singing of “Geni e o Zepelim” by Barcellos, ending with the actress in tears, is a number that has received a standing ovation in every session of “Opera do malandro” since the premiere of the production in São Paulo (SP). The ovation is already expected and each audience corresponds to the expectations already created around the actress's solo, the culmination of a show full of collective numbers based on the strength of the cast, such as the rumba “Las muchachas de Copacabana” (1978). The cry of a tribe that is tired of being spat on in the face, “Geni e o Zepelim” is the emblem of the montage that is nourished by the language and body expression of the clowns – clear in the painting of the cast’s faces and the composition of the characters, especially that of delegate Chaves, Tigrão played by actor Amaury Lorenzo – and the movement of the catira, a dance from national folklore in which the rhythm is marked by the synchronized beat of the feet and the palms of the hands. Ultimately, without fear of desecrating in the best of senses an already (con)secrated text of Brazilian musical theater, Jorge Farjalla reinvigorates “Ópera do malandro” with the strong hand of a director who has made a difference on the national scene.