XLIII Festival Internacional de Cante de las Minas. La Unión

FORTY-THIRD
FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DEL CANTE DE LAS MINAS

Estrella Morente &
group

Monday, August 11th, 2003.

La Unión.3

Guitar: Montoyita. Percussion and chorus: El Negri. Chorus:
Antonio Carbonell, Victoria Carbonell, Remedios Heredia.

Very often when performers try to please everyone, they
end up pleasing almost no one. On Monday night in La Unión's
cathedral of cante, with a packed house, Estrella Morente's
hardcore fans were delighted with their idol's performance,
but a certain portion of the younger audience complained about
«too much 'cante jondo'», while flamenco fans grumbled
about «too much pop». Others were simply unable
to digest the endless flow of arabesques and flowery warbling
that are the trademark of the young superstar from Granada.

Nevertheless, the singer's sweet delivery is extremely apt
for the cantes of her hometown and despite a lack of absolute
orthodoxy, she made a good impression with her granaínas
and malagueñas. Her mining cante was somewhat less
fortunate here in the heartland of mining country with a knowledgeable
and demanding audience that doesn't like it's native music
tampered with or modernized.

The girl can sing, no doubt about it. With her flawless ear
and sweet flexible voice, she's flamenco's answer to Whitney
Houston, but what for some is «pure gold», for others
is a throwback to the excesses of the so-called «ópera
flamenca» era. It's a tough call.

Far easier to discuss her artistic persona which, at the
very least, is original. She gesticulates with each turn of
the melody and even in the long warm-ups and wordless trills,
her face and hands move as if she were saying something of
great importance. She's beautiful…ravishing in fact, but
slightly accident-prone. She knocked the microphone over,
broke her fan just opening it, stepped on the edge of her
dress partially ripping out a ruffle and at the end of her
performance got so entangled with the microphone stand, she
had to drag it off-stage in order to make her exit. Sudden
flourishes of a shawl or fan leave the audience wondering
what's going on, but then a seductive glance makes everything
alright.

In addition to the above-mentioned cantes, there was an opening
alegrías clearly intended to honor La Niña de
los Peines, accompanied by aggressive palmas from four men
while the smoke machine didn't let up. One song developed
into melodies reminiscent of soleá, another had a distinct
jazz sound and another a typical 'nayno' chorus. The tangos
were interesting because of their variety, including styles
from Extremadura, Granada and those of la Repompa. The playing
of the young phenomenon Montoyita was quite a pleasant surprise,
and his guitar solo received one of the warmest ovations of
the night.

With the Lorca-inspired tangos «En lo alto del cerro»
from Estrella's first record the smoke machine puffed it's
last cloud and a short bulerías wrapped up the performance.

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