From Bragado to Nueva York: A local tenor adrift in the cultural plot of international opera

Abstract

This article rebuilds and explores Florencio Constantino’s trajectory, that of a Basque immigrant who would arrive in Buenos Aires as a workman and would turn into an internationally renowned tenor and a star of the emerging record labels in less than ten years. Apart from this uniqueness, an exceptional nature, the entrepreneur by himself’s trajectory becomes a prism thorough which we can approach the cultural turn-ofthecentury experiences, either successful or truncated. Rebuilding his life history is accomplished by addressing documentary corpus made by the 1890-1910 press, both national and international. The methodology proposed for this analysis considers qualitative tools from regional history to reinstate micro specialties in a macro context and those from a pragmatic perspective to allow us focus on the courses of action Constantino took. The article shows, across this itinerary, how the analysis on the cultural trajectories based on the margins of the cultural center sheds light on the specific ways of experiencing and owing the cultural modernity as well as those of accounting for the emergency of the new ways of recognition, passion and artistic circuits.

This article rebuilds and explores Florencio Constantino’s trajectory, that of a Basque immigrant who would arrive in Buenos Aires as a workman and would turn into an internationally renowned tenor and a star of the emerging record labels in less than ten years. Apart from this uniqueness, an exceptional nature, the entrepreneur by himself’s trajectory becomes a prism thorough which we can approach the cultural turn-ofthecentury experiences, either successful or truncated. Rebuilding his life history is accomplished by addressing documentary corpus made by the 1890-1910 press, both national and international. The methodology proposed for this analysis considers qualitative tools from regional history to reinstate micro specialties in a macro context and those from a pragmatic perspective to allow us focus on the courses of action Constantino took. The article shows, across this itinerary, how the analysis on the cultural trajectories based on the margins of the cultural center sheds light on the specific ways of experiencing and owing the cultural modernity as well as those of accounting for the emergency of the new ways of recognition, passion and artistic circuits.

Este artigo reconstrói e analisa a trajetória de Florencio Constantino, um imigrante basco que chegou a Buenos Aires como trabalhador braçal e que, em menos de dez anos, tornou-se tenor e estrela internacionalmente reconhecido das emergentes indústrias fonográficas. Para além da singularidade do caso, desta excepcionalidade, a trajetória deste “empresário de si” constitui um prisma para abordar experiências culturais —tanto exitosas como truncadas— dos séculos. A reconstrução da história de sua vida é feita por meio da abordagem de um amplo corpus documental constituído pela imprensa nacional e internacional do período 1890-1910. A metodologia proposta para a análise do caso parte de ferramentas qualitativas da história regional para substituir as microespacialidades em um contexto macro e de uma perspectiva pragmática que nos permite enfatizar os cursos de ação desenvolvidos por Constantino. Após o percurso proposto, o artigo mostra como a análise das trajetórias culturais localizadas nas margens do centro cultural lança luz sobre modos específicos de atravessar e se apropriar da modernidade cultural, bem como dar conta do surgimento de novas formas de consagração, de passatempo. e circuitos artísticos.