The maestro Valderrama was nearby. And Mayte Martín knew it when, after the prelude of ethnic drums and violin, she came out to meet the audience in Seville. When she sang Ten cuidao it was without fanfare, she was alone, steady, and with the self-assurance that came from the knowledge that the Sevillian audience knew what was in store. This time there would be no Chocolate to share the bill. She remained standing for the prologue with the bulerías song by Rafael de León, in a somewhat more condensed version that on Querencia. She marked out her territory, the compás, and like an orchestra conductor, the turns of the melody (and the silences) of the flamenco-ized song that opens the record.

With an unusually flamenco pronunciation of the final s's she knowledgeably presented the vidalita. And she acknowledged she felt fortunate because the person who moved her with that cante could, this time, hear the dedication "online". "Mi pena es más grande, vidalita, porque va por dentro" ("My suffering is all the greater since it's on the inside"), she sings, lingering on stretched notes, trilling, sweet. Alone with the guitar of Juan Ramón Caro, she sings softly, barely skimming the surface, but without holding back on the high notes... When necessary, she pushes and flies high. When necessary, she lubricates the turns and comes in for a kill. A knock-out for sensitivity.

"Beautiful Mayte!", says Juan Valderrama from somewhere in the hall.

Jumping the order of songs on the record she gets into peteneras, challenging the dark spirits "por la venganza cobarde" ("cowardly vengeance"). The six strings of the guitar match the delicacy of a voice which strives to quote la Niña de los Peines. The soaring high tones bring goosebumps and, there upon high, she embellishes relentlessly before the suicidal descent... With no other backup than the six strings she conjures up El Canario, Chacón and Frasquito Yerbagüena... malagueña, rondeña and fandango. But offering the possibility "if you like I can change to a fandango of....". An offer of interactivity to break the ice. Since no one speaks up, she launches into naked, crystalline, pure cante. The guitar winds down to silence. She sings from the inside out. Impossible changes, from the sky to the heart, where she flirts with a smooth roughness. "¡Sereno que viene el día!" ("Hey nightwatchman, it's daybreak!"). The climax causes Valderrama to squirm excitedly in his seat: "You're incredible!"

In a display of naturalness and a defying the glamour of the stage, Mayte stands up to remove her belt... "because I'm fat and it's too tight". Thus liberated, she immediately opens a supernatural channel between jest and the profoundest of pains, to submerge herself in the seguiriya of El Pena. The guitar pulses the lead-in so that she may bravely but not recklessly get out the warmup syllables. She grows, she shrinks. She sings to the gut, she cries out loud from within. She closes lengthily, floridly.

"Waves upon a sea in calm, waves from a serenely calm voice", Fandangos de Huelva. The ethnic drums join the guitar in the accompaniment. The strings crackle dryly behind the guitar's "ivory teeth". Mayte draws the cante with her hand. Conquero's melodies become visible. The praiseful comments keep coming and she handles them with a modesty that Dolores Abril firmly cuts short: "We're doing justice to the art".

Salt from the saltflats to continue on to cantiñas. The guitar leads the way evoking the sea: "Nunca llueve como truena, con esa esperanza vivo" ("It never rains like it thunders, that hope keeps me going"), she sings prettily and simply, classic but not overdone. Mistress of circumstance, she allows herself to be playful, daring, challenging... until the final exit with "titirimundis". An instrumental respite. An arc of light slices down from above. Olvido Lanza's violin stands alone, reprising Mayte Martín's particular vision of petenera. A few chilling moments before the reappearance on stage of the whole troupe. The recital comes full circle and, after the lesson in traditional flamenco, returns to the light songs of the opening. The audience thins out.

Those remaining don't have to insist too long for a curtain call. The singer feels like doing "Llorar de melancolía". Mayte Martín causes a stir when she rolls up her sleeves to play the guitar, while she comments on Seville's much-feared critics. Before beginning, a disclaimer directed at Tomatito who, along with Esperanza Fernández and Juan Carlos Romero, is among the audience: "Look man, I'm no guitarist". And the flamenco singer turns pop singer, recalling her first work and offering a sample of her upcoming record... love ballads with a flamenco flavor, more for sighing than cheering.

Candela Olivo
Translation: Estela Zatania
Photos: Anahí Cármody