The Guevarian “Diary of the Return” at the CCK as a gift for Lima Quintana’s 100th birthday

(By Sergio Arboleya) The delayed national premiere of “Diary of the Return”, a daring cantata that narrates in first person the transfer of the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara to Cuba, moved last night the packed National Auditorium of the Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK) in a concert held as a celebration of the centenary of one of its authors, the poet Hamlet Lima Quintana.

To capture the local staging of the work with music by Oscar Cardozo Ocampo that Jairo recorded in 2000 and that was performed in a couple of performances in Cuba, there were notable performances by the Juan de Dios Filiberto National Argentine Music Orchestra and the National Choir of Argentine Music, under the direction of Mariano Chiacchiarini, and a great performance by Juan Iñaki as solo voice.

This sum of conspiring talents – to which was added Guillermo Cardozo Ocampo, Oscar’s son and who replaced the lost orchestrations – delivered a high-impact artistic and political testimony that defied the calendar.

Because it is a figure like Lima Quintana, who always put his pen and his body to accompany the causes that he considered just and necessary, it is impossible and vain to separate the poetic weight from the ideological burden of a proposal around the image of the Argentine revolutionary. -Cuban murdered in Bolivia in 1967.

And because the Latin American texts and musical genres used trace the return of Guevara’s body from Bolivia to Cuba as an epic and emotional return, we must not only look at that journey and that exaltation from this regional present so far from that epic but also in the context in which Che left the island.

Although the matter is not completely settled and should not and cannot be settled in this chronicle, it was not only the desire to expand the revolution that kept Che away from Cuba but also deep divergences with the direction of the process that began on January 1, 1959. and commanded by Fidel Castro.

But the spirit of Hamlet’s writing (a renowned member of the Argentine Communist Party and an impeccable militancy that brought him prohibitions, persecutions and exile) chooses to deliver a celebratory tone to address Guevara’s return to the land where he forged his legend as a face and flag. .

Perhaps that is why cries like “hold on Cuba” or “long live Cuba” came from the packed and mature audience towards the end of the fiery and accomplished performance by Iñaki and two of the groups that make up the National Directorate of Stable Casts. .

Just after 8 p.m., the announcer Gladys Pierpauli introduced the concert and Felipe Lima, one of the sons of the centenary poet and responsible for the artistic concept of the evening, took the floor and said that his father wrote the 14 texts of “Diary of the Return” in just eight days but he died in February 2002 regretting not having been able to show it in his country.

“Happiness, dear old man, the work is now complete,” Felipe concluded moved while the first of the night’s ovations thundered through the place.

With its 14 pieces (a number that refers to the day in June 1928 when Che was born in Rosario), the cantata recognizes four locations for its journey in 1997 when Guevara’s remains were found: “In Bolivia” (June 28 ), “In flight” (July 14 at noon), “In Havana” (July 14 at night) and “In Santa Clara” (October 17).

The penetrating huayno “Yes, it is me” (“Yes, brothers/Yes, it is me/Yes, it is me because the earth was not a chest of my hands that are a trophy of war and they did not leave even its shadow/But you did not forget glories or disappointments and that 30 years passed to say I am the earth”) began the journey.

That Bolivian section continued with the song “Belly of Clay”, the chacarera air “Las figuraciones” (“Dreams are always endless as the days go by/the innumerable can be enumerated in clear utopias”), the magnificent loncomeo air “ Belonging to the land” where he names indigenous Latin American peoples and the candombe “A way of a pigeon.”

But for the closing of that fragment with the habanera “Despedida del nochecer” there was one of the most successful moments of the recital due to the level of aesthetic cohesion achieved that the bombastic vocalist from Cordoba finished off with the accurate phrase: “I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” “I leave my sigh.” The second part of the journey brought rhythms from Brazil in “Volando por el cielo”, the baguala of “Confesional de América” (“Thus this thoughtful letter falls to you from above/says that I love you to the bone/signed: Your commander “) and even a tango wink in “Ay corazón no te desboques.”

The arrival in Cuba and its tasty rhythms elevated the climate and showed the ductility of Lima Quintana’s poetry to become familiar with that atmosphere, although the overwhelming majority of his song work (estimated at about 400 songs and where “Zamba para no muerte” stands out) and “La amanecida”, among others) relied on native genres.

Between the guajira “Del cielo y de la tierra” and “Cántame un son, Nicolás” (citing the poet Nicolás Guillén), the rumba “Yo soy el remembereddo” stood out (“And for old Havana/I feel renewed/because no one has forgotten me/and my voice does not complain/The ground is paved/with lights from my eyes/I am not a wreck/I am the one remembered”) and the bolero “Everyday Images” (“And everything passes by my step /The sugar passes, a fish passes and no failure ever happens/There are no lost days that confuse me/There are always suns, there is never sunset. With the powerful song “Resurrection in Santa Clara” (“By Santa Clara the prisoner is freed/death is being overshadowed in the miracle/and he is saying that in struggle I consecrate myself/I return to life to join the people/I am the cacique and I’m on the way back”), the audience was ejected from their seats and even led to an encore that rounded off a great birthday party for the enormous and committed poet.