Lucila Gandolfo’s studio is small. A kind of musical bunker with an upright piano for her classes, posters of some of the works she did during her career, photos and a music stand with the sheet music of her songs. Mary Poppins.
His apartment is in the area that gentrification calls the Theater District of Buenos Aires and he only has to walk a few blocks to the Maipo (Esmeralda 443), where he performs the musical A movie without Julieon Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Since its premiere in 2022, the same thing happens every time a show ends. Someone from the audience approaches to congratulate her, but also seeks to clear up a doubt: Does Julie Andrews know that you are doing this work? She says no, maybe she doesn’t know very well what to answer, like when one is left defenseless in the face of praise.
The actress, singer and singing teacher premiered the show about a girl named Catalina Lonely, who had a life marked by the actress of Mary Poppins y The Sound of Music.
So much so that she incorporates it as an invisible friend who accompanies her throughout her life. “Lucila Gandolfo is Julie Andrews,” says the promotion for the play. And there is some reason.
Gandolfo sketched a monologue about that girl – who could very well be her – more than a decade ago; That idea ended up being a work with text and music by Fernando Albinarrate and direction by Julio Panno.
Last year, during a break in the performances, her husband reminded her of that recurring question from viewers and proposed: why don’t you go to New York and look for Julie? That’s how she traveled with a cousin, without too many clues. Perhaps she was inspired by that Lucila, who “wanted to be one of the girls who sang in The Sound of Music”.
-What did you say to your husband when he gave you the idea?
-I don’t even know where he lives! That’s what I told him. I started looking for friends who were producers and directors, who could approach her or a manager. I wrote to Bay Street Theaterthe theater run by his daughter in Sag Harbor (New York state). I explained everything, the show, the tribute… There they told me that they couldn’t put me in contact with Julie, but they offered me to put on the play in the theater. They even asked me for a video. When I sent it, they told me: “Your voice is so beautiful. It looks a lot like Julie did when she was young.”
-A job possibility, but still without success in your search…
-We travel the same. An Argentinian friend, who works in real estate, gave me a piece of paper with an address and told me: “I got this for you. Let’s see if it works for you. I don’t know if he will continue to live there, but it is listed in his name.” As soon as we arrived, we left our things at the hotel and went to look for her. We were walking with the help of Waze on the cell phone. We arrived at the house, which had a gate and an electric intercom. And we ring the bell.
Julie, are you there?
Ringing your favorite artist’s bell is something that requires at least two conditions: courage and deep admiration for their work. Lucila has both, as well as a great talent to honor her with a show of twenty songs that Julie Andrews made famous.
He says he remembers the first time he saw it on the big screen. It was a cinema with stairs on the sides and a marble floor. From that moment, she was captivated. “I and many children wanted to fly like Mary Poppins or singing and playing in the lake with María von Trapp,” he says.
After a long walk, there he was in front of Julie’s house, with a gift scarf and a letter. There she told him that she was doing a play in honor of her and that her characters had been a source of inspiration for many children around the world. The letter ended with this phrase: “If you are reading this, my dream came true.” And she rang the doorbell.
-I play and I hear a noise in the background and it tells me: “Wait a second while I lower the volume.” I look at my cousin and say, “It’s her!” When she answers again, she tells me it was the wrong address. I asked her if there was a mailbox to leave the letter and she told me that she didn’t know.
-That her voice was beautiful and that mine was very similar to hers. That’s where the situation ends. She couldn’t do much more. I’m sure it was her. I didn’t know if anyone was going to help me or if the police were going to arrive. It was Sunday and New York Times It was folded in a bag. I put the letter in there and pushed the diary under the gate. In other words, it reached him, it reached him. With that gesture I felt that he had committed a contravention (series). Although leaving him a letter wasn’t much after traveling from here.
new dreams
Lucila and her cousin’s trip ended with that anecdote, but the show continues on its way. She performs every week at the Maipo with a large audience and she wants this girl’s story to come to life in a series or a film. She dreams of an interest in the Disney factory. She dreams that her tribute will travel beyond the country. The show is already translated – Gandolfo is bilingual – and she received an invitation from the Argentine Consulate in New York to take her to that city.
-What continues to fascinate you about Julie Andrews even today?
-After what I felt as a child, as an adult I continue to be fascinated by her way of singing and saying. She never does it with vocal effort. With the great complexity that that has!
-You say it as a singing teacher…
-This is precisely what I preach with my students: look for saying and moving forward with the word. Of course, to get to that one has to have mastered and gone through the technique. A few years ago, precisely, I read one of his biographies, in which he said that his singing teacher taught him and prioritized saying. It was something that seduced me a lot, beyond her beautiful voice. And that timbre is so crystalline and so pure.
-In addition to your show, there are others of the genre in a difficult time, with fewer viewers. What is your view of the musical scene in the city?
-During the winter holidays we saw the boom of Rent, School of Rock y The Little Prince. It makes me happy to know that many young people are working and making a name for themselves. In my time there was not this amount of independent theater on offer, new authors, musical creators and so many schools that opened in recent years. There is an audience for musical comedy and I think it’s great that this is the case, although at one point I also wanted to challenge myself just as an actress.
Lucila Gandolfo remembers her work in The serial teacher y The Ogress of Barracasby Gonzalo Demaría. And the challenge of the sudden language of TV, following the villain he played in the youth series I am Moon. Behind him, on the lectern, the score of Mary Poppins. The story with Julie Andrews does not seem like a resounding decision.
-Did you think about returning to New York?
-In April, she and her daughter presented their stories for children at the theater Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. I thought about getting on a plane, mingling with the public and asking: Did you get my letter? But I didn’t do it.
It seemed a bit stalker to me (series).
-Do you still dream of meeting her?
-One wants things to be now. And things happen when you least expect them.
