Ada Falcón
Aída Elsa Ada Falcone, known artistically as Ada Falcón, was born on August 17, 1905 in a ranch in the Ituzaingó district and was the youngest daughter of Cornelia Boesio. She was married to Domingo Falcone and had an affair with Miguel Nazar Anchorena, a rancher from Tucumán who died in France without meeting his daughter.
In her childhood she lived in a building located on the corner of Avenida San Juan and Rincón in the San Cristóbal neighborhood. Her biography tells that when she was barely 4 years old she told her mother that she wanted to sing, a wish that the woman encouraged: she debuted as "The Little Argentine Jewel" in the Society of San Vicente de Paul where she appeared with the surname "Falcón", by request of his mother.
In 1919, at the age of 14, she participated in the silent film “El festín de los caranchos”, of which no traces remained. Her artistic career was constantly on the rise and she prevented her from going to school, so she received classes at her house.
Until July 15, 1925, she alternated varietés with magazine pictures. But that day she began her work in the RCA Victor recording room, together with Osvaldo Fresedo's orchestra. She thus became the third Argentine woman to record a tango album. Azucena Maizani and Rosita Quiroga were already on the scene, making their debut on albums in 1923. In 1927, Mercedes Simone and Tita Merello joined the female group, and then Tania would arrive in 1930.
In 1929 she recorded 14 songs for the Odeón label with the pianist Enrique Delfino and the guitarist Manuel Parada. On July 24 of that year she began her working relationship with Francisco Canaro and his orchestra. They recorded “La morocha” and another 180 meetings followed, which produced fifteen albums per month. In those months she debuted on Radio Cultura, Stentor, Splendid, Argentina, Prieto, Belgrano and El Mundo. Ada was already at the top of her career. She also recorded three films, of which she starred in one, and by the mid-1930s she was one of the most important tango singers. The public admired her for her power of interpretation, so particular and so heartfelt; despite the fact that she rejected contact with him.
By 1934, cinema was sound and she returned to the big screen with the help of director Eduardo Morera, who made her the protagonist of “Idolos de la radio” alongside Ignacio Corsini and Tita Merello. And there she sang “I don't know what your eyes have done to me,” a waltz composed by Canaro in her honor, in 1933. A song that, ironically, would mark her life and her artistic career. Together with the composer she lived the height of her career and a great love that would last a little more than a decade.
At that time Ada's green eyes dazzled everyone who looked at her. "What eyes! You can't imagine what I was. You just had to look at the dimples in my cheeks, at my teeth, at my legs. Discépolo said of me: 'She's so divine, it makes me sick to look at her,'" he told the newspaper Clarín. in 1992.
Among her greatest tango hits were: “Envidia”, “Destellos”, “Corazón de oro”, “La pulpera de Santa Lucía”, “Caminito”, and “Cambalache”, among many others.
In 1935 she reached her period of splendor and decided not to make any more public appearances, so Radio El Mundo – where the best orchestras played live – left at her disposal a small room F, which they called “Sala Falcón”. They say that she did not want to have contact with the public that filled the main room. It is said that her “diva airs” led her to eccentricity and that she did things like get into her red convertible and run from Palermo to Vicente López so that the wind will dry your hair.
On September 28, 1938, she ended her employment relationship with Francisco Canaro and her performances began to become increasingly sporadic. A year later she sang behind a curtain that hid her even from her own musicians. In 1942, she recorded her last album with the tango “Corazón encadenado” and the waltz “Viviré con tu memoria”, by Canaro and Ivo Pelay. After this she decided to leave everything and together with her mother, who as a child had promoted her career, she moved from Buenos Aires.
It is suspected that Falcón's decision to live in seclusion for 60 years is linked to her relationship with Canaro, with whom they would have been bandmates and lovers, while he was married to a French woman.
The reasons that led Ada to distance herself from Canaro are not proven, but a musician from the orchestra and the director's biographer then told two versions: Ada insisted that Canaro separate from his wife to marry her, which he would have accepted. , but he didn't do it because he knew that the French woman had to keep half of his fortune.
The other version says that while the lovers were resting from a performance and Ada was sitting on Canaro's lap, the Frenchwoman entered the room, took a gun from her purse and made an attempt on the life of the singer who ran away.
Other versions claim that Adhelma, her older sister, and Canaro had had an intimate relationship and that when Ada found out about it, she never spoke to them again.
In one of the few and exceptional interviews obtained in 1982, Falcón said: "In my youth I had riches and beauty, I had a wonderful vision of the Lord and I did not hesitate for a moment to leave everything and seclude myself in the mountains with my mother, in a Franciscan convent. , and live with humility. Since I was born, I slept next to my mother, and her death destroyed me." Ada's mother died in 1977 at the age of over 90 and after her loss the singer went to a retirement home as a third Franciscan.
Her retirement in the '40s had strongly surprised the artistic environment. Falcón lived in a luxury house in the heart of Palermo Chico, he had two high-end cars and he sold everything, distributing a large part of his wealth among some of his acquaintances. He then moved with his mother to a simple house in Salsipuestas, in the middle of the mountains of Córdoba.
She was there until 1989 and returned to Buenos Aires where she accused the Odeón record company of not wanting to reissue her albums (it was learned that she herself denied those rights) and accused her sister Adhelma of singing in small places posing as her, and signing autographs. with his name.
Adhelma, two years older than her, also sang but she never achieved the fame of Ada and they stopped having contact the same year she retired. In that report, which he agreed to after years of silence, he said about her: "For thirty years another person claimed all my rights; it was revenge from a very powerful person who already died, who told me he was going to starve me to death." It is believed that the powerful person she was referring to was Canaro who died on December 14, 1964.
When her old age began to weigh on her, she decided to seclude herself in the nursing home of the sisters of San Camilo, located in the town of Molinari, near Cosquín.
Shortly before he died, he again agreed to an interview for the award-winning documentary about his life “I don't know what your eyes have done to me,” by Sergio Wolf and Lorena Muñoz, where behind thick glass lenses and with his hair hidden by a black net is seen in profile looking at herself.
The documentary achieved the last image of her after 60 years: she ends with the face of an elderly woman, lost between the memories of her and the illness that afflicted her. Wolf asks her what her great love was, in clear reference to Canaro. "I don't remember," she responded almost between sighs.
In one of her scenes, the documentary maker makes her watch a film where she acts and makes her listen to the recordings of her. She barely recognizes herself. He looks at the images and refers to the young woman he sees in the third person: "Poor Ada!… "Poor Canaro!" he repeated as if they were the same person. This invaluable material received a Silver Condor award, a Clarín award, two awards from the Havana Film Festival and another from BAFICI as Best Documentary in 2004.
The house she lived in in Salsipoders has been recycled and converted into a private museum in 2013, known as Casona & Museo La Joyita, in which furniture, works of art and memories of the singer are preserved.
Ada Falcón died of natural causes at the age of 96 in the nursing home of the San Camilo congregation, in the town of Molinari, 5 kilometers from Cosquín. Her remains were transferred to Buenos Aires, where they were buried in the SADAIC pantheon in the Chacarita cemetery, as an irony of fate, meters from those of Francisco Canaro.
