Stelian Tănase
Maestro:
a Melodrama
Bucharest: Polirom, 2008
Stelian Tănase takes aim at Romanian society with a literary
arsenal that relies on the grotesque, that owes a debt to opera buffa, and that
uses a lens known to Bosch and
Ensor. In this literary melodrama, Tina Marcu is a well-known Bucharest television presenter. She “plays”
opposite Avram Duca, a successful Romanian writer and difficult character who
has been living in exile for 30 years. It’s long past ’89, and Duca has refused
to return to Romania,
his native country. The action unrolls after Tina calls for the dismissal of
the Minister of the Interior one evening, live, on the air. Her program is
cancelled. To avoid scandal, the broadcasting company offers Tina documentary
reportage on Duca in Paris.
She completes the necessary footage and returns to Bucharest. There, researching her subject in
the national archive, Tina discovers that Duca is her natural father. She goes
back to Paris
to have it out with him. After a night of raw discussion, the daughter refuses
to forgive her natural father on the ground that her mother committed suicide
after Duca fled to Paris,
which makes it impossible for Tina to remain with Duca as father and daughter.
Tina leaves for Bucharest.
Throwing himself into the Seine, Avram Duca
commits suicide. He is buried with national honors in the Romanian capital. Another
character, Emiluţa,
provides the novel’s moral center. Often cynical, Maestro is a knowing mix of tragedy and vaudeville.
