Ricardo Montaner: from his successful artistic gift to his critics of the pope and Roger Waters for their positions against the Nicolás Maduro regime – 02/10/2019

The sound test has been extended more than the story and Ricardo Montaner (61) arrives in his dressing room humming the new world hit which ranks at the top of the music ranking and whose video, starring Lali Esposito and J Balvin, accumulates million views on YouTube / Vevo since its launch. "I came to repeat and it struck me," he argues, while he was receiving Clarin, when there are only two hours to go to the legendary Luna Park, with tickets sold, three years after his last show in Argentina.

Although it only has a few hours of sleep on the previous Friday to close the first day of the 52nd edition of the Villa María Festival, its energy seems inexhaustible. "We moved everything to be able to do both, I almost finished at 4 in the morning and went here, but I slept rich all morning and took my coffee!" Last year, when we did the program La Voz ArgentinaWe think we missed something. And that something was this face-to-face contact with people. Then we started to imagine this tour, which was destined for later, "he says, with verbiage in tune with the rhythm of his life these days.

"Everything happened better than if we had planned it in advance, it's now time for me to sing on Valentine's Day (Montaner will come back on the Moon stage on Thursday 14) ", owner of an infinite catalog of romantic ballads that he chooses today to merge with current rhythms such as trap. With a cup of half-finished ginger tea and the desire to re-record a second season of Telefé's reality show that appointed him jury in 2018, the Latin Grammy Award winner for musical excellence sets its success What are you going to do as a deserved reward for what has been planted during months of work.

"It's been three years since you walked on Luna Park.Do you feel more local than a visitor when you come?

– Coming to the moon always gives you a special feeling. There are three or four places in the world that are very mythical like this one. Today, they reminded me that my first concert here was held around 92. I promise one day to tell me how many shows I've done here since I started

-In 2009, you were rewarded for your record number of concerts.

-And they gave me a gray medal that I always have at home, which says "Luna Park Stadium". It was an intense year when we had to do about 52 concerts in Argentina.

– Without giving up your essence as an author of ballads, you have encouraged the trap and even summoned Lali Esposito to play in your latest video which is now recorded in reproductions. What did he see?

-Today, I see myself more as the narrator of my stories in my videos than as an actor, and we are looking for who would give a particular color to my new single. I needed actors to symbolize what is happening today at the musical level. Lali is a great actress and J Balvin, who did not do it, really did as he really was.

-Although you are on tour and next to release your new record, your commitments did not stop you from leading a mobilization in Medellin, Colombia, where you walked with your children and asked for the resignation of Nicolás Maduro.

-All that I do by far thinking about Venezuela touches me particularly.

-Has he mobilized to share this moment with Mau and Ricky?

-It was very strong, because Venezuela was the country where they were raised and born. As a little boy, Venezuela has offered me opportunities, and the first microphone has been given to sing there. I studied at school, at the baccalaureate and it was there that I started my journalism career.

– Are you surprised that an artist such as Roger Waters has called a demonstration in favor of the Maduro regime saying that Venezuela "has a real democracy"?

-I'm surprised when you put bandages on your eyes and you do not see the reality. Wanting to be "cool" by supporting something that does not make sense, because supporting that is supporting genocide and arguing that they are overthrowing human rights, the most transcendent rights such as the right to life, to education, to eat, to all these things. The right to play for little kids … You throw them overboard to make the front page.

-You also expressed your disagreement, just as the actress Catherine Fulop expressed it, because of the neutral stance adopted by Pope Francis facing the crisis of the Venezuelan people.

-Because I believe, and I say it with the greatest respect, that as a representative of the Catholic community of the whole world, his obligation is to be with the one who suffers. And the one who is suffering is the one who is crying out today especially for God to hear them. Then, we must badume that he is close to people telling them that "calm", that God is there for them. I see it with pain, because I like it and I think it's a good guy, and the least I wanted was it to think that it was going to be so good. Identify with the pain of people who are bloody in the street.

-In the middle of last year, your youngest daughter, Evaluna, aged 21, is engaged to her boyfriend and announced the future marriage via social networks. Did you receive the news naturally or did it give you a headache?

-The only thing that has generated me is a lot of joy that Camilo came to talk to me to help him plan how he was going to ask Eva out of the hand. And he had the intention of asking me first his hand, but I got away from laughter before he started talking. He realized and started crying with laughter but nervousness, because he thought I was going to tell him everything.

– Another important celebration is your 30th wedding anniversary on August 26, when you promised to renew your wishes. Was it your initiative or Marlene's?

-Both. We renew every five years, we organize a celebration with service and we literally remarket. With a pastor … The last time, it was our children who married us. And this time it will be on an island in Greece.

– You once said that talent is not inherited and that it is an individual quality with which God rewards you. Are your children, all young artists, the exception to this rule?

-Recognize God what is happening. They could be my kids but not necessarily focus on that. In the case of our family, God has given us all by chance with this musical inclination. The good thing is that we exercise it … so that it does not rust!

-When you have registered & # 39; La Voz Argentina & # 39; Last year, you chose not to stay in a hotel, but to live in a house with your wife, Marlene, for four months. Did you want to return to your home country?

-I am not a single guy; I have a huge family and, although my wife also loves coming, as parents or heads of families, we need to be close to our children and our grandchildren. I could not force them to follow me. But it is true that when I arrived here, I found a nostalgia and I found myself with flavors, colors, faces that I had not seen for a long time. Family members I do not see very often, like my godfather; my uncle Pico, who is 87 years old; My aunt, who came to see me today at the show. I also went to visit the neighborhood where I lived when I was small.

– Do you think that your role as a jury on television has brought you closer to other people?

-Yes, because we go home every day and that, one way or another, you awaken an acquaintance of the artist that the public has not not. It has made me very close to the heart and the family of the people of this country. And it made me very happy.

An expected and celebrated return at Luna Park

Three decades of success in pure dance and emotion.

The antechamber of his expected return on the stage of Madero Avenue in Buenos Aires, the one that saw him so many times shine, was tinged with euphoria and a broad female wave that was leaving presage of the appearance of the singer. It was then, missing 5 minutes to 21.30, half an hour after the announced time, that between two sighs, the Venezuelan nationalized Venezuelan singer began a festive and exciting mix performance.

"I had been waiting for this moment for three years to get rid of this dream, I will need good hours of music," he announced with 15 musicians ready to accompany him on an unforgettable trip for his repertoire of the most colorful tubes.

So much in love, cachita, Let me cry and Blue Castle were clbadics, still valid, whose stanzas resisted the most timid, while I'll miss him It was a catapult like the most sung song.

Delivered to the heat that brought the audience back from the first to the last row, Montaner knew how to contaminate his charisma, but also let his emotions flow when he spoke of the crisis his beloved Venezuelan is going through.

"I want us to send our applause to the Venezuelan people, for their full liberation, for the people who have left and arrived in the Latin American countries to continue their momentum. to arrive and, as President Juan Guaido says, we are doing very well. "Long live Venezuela!", clearly shouted one of the continent's greatest romantic voices and sparked the public's spontaneous ovation.

In addition to singing your new single, What will you do?Towards the end, and as "an experience we started yesterday at Villa María and everything went very well", Montaner sponsored celestino with the voluntary participation of a boy and a girl chosen among the spectators who, without knowing each other, were dancing "slowly", with Kiss Me like a curtain.

The "reward" for raising morale: an official invitation to the next show of Axel, one of the former teammates of the jury of La Voz Argentinawith dinner, at the expense of the artist himself. The rest was the end of a party that will have its second party very soon, February 14 to 21, on the same stage.

Ricardo Montaner returns to sing at the Luna Park (Madero and Corrientes), February 14 at 21 hours. Tickets on sale starting from $ 1,100, by TicketPortal.