In Strangers' Arms

Story: A singer, Manuel, aspires to compose an opera based on the “love story” between the tango poet Contursi and the woman named Gricel. The singer ‘s journey uncover some truths.  Sometime around 1935, Gricel was 16 and Contursi was 24 and married. He enamored her, and some years later abandoned her. Later he reproached himself in the lyrics of tango “Gricel.”

In this popular story the former lovers remained apart longing for each other throughout their lives. The myth: love can last forever.

Manuel interviews family, friends, and people who knew Contursi and Gricel. He visits places related to their lives, researches archives, reads their actual correspondence and interviews Contursi’s daughter. She had known about her father relationship with Gricel for many years.

I was unable to feel moved by the mutual love myth portrayed in the lyrics.  Why? He was 24 and she 16. Is the story proof that love can last forever as the myth suggests? Perhaps she did love him. Perhaps he did love her? But …what a deal she got in the end: She found him suffering from severe depression and episodes of delirium brought on by alcoholism.  They married and she nursed him until his death.

A muse turned nursemaid!

“José María Contursi emerged in the 1930s as the love-song lyricist par excellence. The situation in “Gricel” – lyrics – is a case of love lost, of someone abandoning someone. With one difference: in Contursi’s lyrics the roles are often reversed. The male speaker sings his regret for having moved on to some other lover.” (In Strangers’ Arms: The magic of the Tango, pp. 174-177).