The revista porteña (meaning "porteña revue" or "Buenos Aires revue" in Spanish) is a theatrical genre native to Argentina, derived from European revue, which originated in the city of Buenos Aires and dominated the local theatre circuit—concentrated chiefly on Corrientes Avenue—from its emergence in the 1920s until the beginning of its decline in the second half of the 1970s. The Maipo theatre was the most emblematic venue of the genre, known as the "cathedral of the revista porteña", though the , the , the and the theatres were also prominent. Its immediate precursor was the revista criolla ( "criolla revue", that is, local revue), which emerged in the late 1890s as a local adaptation of the Spanish-style revue. The transformation of the revista criolla into the revista porteña took place from 1922 onward, when the staging of French revue productions—notably that of and her Ba-Ta-Clan company, which caused a great impact on the city's audiences and influenced local theatrical producers. The French productions introduced the revue format with scantily clad vedettes and a production style based on luxury, visual splendour and onstage sensuality, deeply shaping the development of the revista porteña.
Over the following decades, the revista porteña experienced an unprecedented boom, at one point premiering more musical productions than reference theatre cities such as New York. Major local figures emerged—actors, comedians, singers and vedettes—who consolidated a style characterised by the absence of a linear plot, favouring instead a succession of sketches, monologues, musical numbers and lavish choreography. The period between 1940 and 1960 is considered the "Golden Age" of the revista porteña. During those years the genre reached its greatest popularity and consolidated its distinctive stylistic features, although the era was also marked by political censorship, particularly during the dictatorship that followed the 1943 coup and during the Peronist government, which restricted political satire and artistic expression, pushing the revue toward more conservative themes or toward the use of foreign elements. Despite this, the revista porteña retained its vitality and adapted, with figures such as Nélida Roca—nicknamed the "Venus of Corrientes Street"—and theatrical impresarios such as Carlos A. Petit, who drove the production and dissemination of the genre.
In the following decades, the revista porteña faced new challenges: competition from sound cinema, television and other theatrical genres such as the café-concert. In the 1960s and 1970s, although it began to lose popularity, it continued to produce hits and to renew itself with the emergence of new vedettes, including Nélida Lobato and Moria Casán. During this period the revista porteña also opened its doors to sexual diversity, notably including transvestite vedettes such as Vanessa Show, a pioneer of travesti-trans representation in the genre. The social and cultural changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, together with economic crisis and the transformation of forms of entertainment, led to a gradual decline of the revista porteña. Today it is considered a genre that has practically disappeared, surviving only sporadically or in transformed forms, influenced by other styles of musical theatre and television comedy. Since 2013 it has been included on the official list of Cultural Heritage of the city, alongside emblems of Buenos Aires culture such as tango or fileteado.
Characteristics
In its classic form, the revista porteña (meaning "porteña revue" or "Buenos Aires revue" in Spanish) is characterised by a predefined structural sequence of segments (called "cuadros", or scenes) based on alternating musical and choreographic numbers interspersed with humorous sketches mainly dealing with political and sexual themes—a pattern that remained constant from roughly 1920 until the genre's decline in the 1970s. The writer , a witness to the revista porteña from its earliest period, explained the genre's typical structure in a 1991 interview, describing an opening musical number as a kind of prologue tied to the revue's title, meant to be visually striking while giving little away; this was followed by two short sketches with a handful of performers and an unexpected twist, with brief musical numbers interspersed between them; then came the celebrated monologue, almost always political in tone and considered indispensable to any revue; an elaborate dance number followed, showcasing the vedettes and dancers; shortly before the end came a keenly awaited tango number, usually sung by a woman and always newly composed for the show; and finally the "apotheosis", a spectacular closing number tied to the revue's title in which the whole company paraded before the audience, employing devices such as runways and staircases, with the leading performers taking individual bows.
In an article written for the magazine El mundo teatral in 1921, Carlos Román gave a detailed description of the genre's structure that "shows the close relationship and mutual interplay of the verbal and the non-verbal". According to Román, revues of that period typically opened with a prologue in which a character—a poet, a "dirty old man", a vagrant, or, most commonly, a canillita (paperboy)—fell into a dream. The lights would dim, a spotlight would come on, and, after the sound of a cymbal, a trapdoor would open and a fairy would appear—symbolising the revue itself, fantasy, inspiration, magic, life, hope, joy, or even a goddess—who consoled the character by promising an entertaining show. Meanwhile the orchestra played a soft melody in the half-light. After a moment of total darkness, the stage would be fully lit by spotlights and the orchestra would reach its peak volume: the revue was in full swing, with a fantastical set framing a group made up of every woman in the company. The fairy, always positioned to the right, announced the sequence of the following scenes. Typical elements included verse passages meant to stir the audience's patriotism, a large musical number showcasing the company's dance troupe, a monologue by the male comedian, politically satirical scenes (often censored), and musical numbers in foreign styles. The show closed with an apotheosis or ensemble number designed to highlight the female talent on stage.
Both the revista porteña, which emerged as such in the 1920s, and its predecessor the revista criolla ( "criolla revue", that is, local revue), reflected the effects of urban and technological progress and modernity on Argentine society. From the 1920s onward, elements of French influence defined the new style of the revista porteña, such as the luxury and allure of the vedettes, elaborate staging, local colour and the depiction of exotic settings. To these was added a central element of the revista porteña: the discussion of current events. Urban changes, politics, cinema and football became recurring subjects for many of the sketches. Antonio Botta, a writer for Pepe Arias's revue company, described the revista porteña in 1937 as a form of theatre that resisted fixed rules, functioning instead as a kind of "objectified journalism" in which the flow of unforeseen current events—political, social, or simply anything with satirical potential—gave the writer material to work with. Political caricature, a hallmark of the revista porteña, began to be replaced from the 1943 military government onward, and later during Peronism, by cruder, coarser humour focused mainly on sex. This type of humour dominated the stage even in later years, once censorship had been lifted.
A classic feature of the revista porteña was the strict hierarchy within its casts, which determined roles in the show. Moria Casán, who established herself as a vedette in the 1970s, recalled in a 2012 interview the typical structure of the female cast: the chorus girls (coristas), who could show their bare backside; the models (modelos), who only paraded and appeared topless; the dancers (bailarinas), who did not bare their backside but showed off their skill; then the "bluebell girls", who went topless without pasties; then, among the vedettes, the medias vedettes ("half vedettes"), who had a brief appearance in the second vedette's number; the second vedette (segunda vedette), who had her own number and some sketches; and the leading vedette (primera vedette), who had the main number, the main sketch and the finale—a hierarchy she noted no longer existed by 2012. The figure of the male comedian, known as the capocómico, has been described as the "backbone of the revue" and headlined most productions.
One of the most characteristic and criticised aspects of the revista porteña has been its reproduction of social prejudices about women. Isabel Coello, a vedette at the Maipo, told the magazine Siete Días Ilustrados in a 1967 feature about the harassment she faced from men, who considered the performers dishonest despite the gruelling eight-hour shifts, ten costume changes a night, and low pay. In the same piece, her colleague Tita added that performers were also subject to a strict, prison-like disciplinary regime, with fines for forgetting an earring and reprimands, as if they were schoolgirls, for arriving five minutes late to rehearsal. On the representation of women in the revista porteña, researchers Beatriz Trastoy and Perla Zayas de Lima wrote:
History 1870–1890: Background and precursors
Unlike other theatrical styles with a tradition in Buenos Aires, the revue is an "immigrant and recent" genre, having reached the city through its French and Spanish variants. The first work to be called a revue was 1841 et 1941 ou aujourd'hui et dans cent ans ("1841–1941, or Today and a Hundred Years From Now"), which premiered in Paris in 1841 and combined elements of the féerie, the café-concert, the music hall, the variété and musical theatre. The term "revue" comes from the French revue, meaning "to review, to see again", which reflected its original purpose: reviewing current political events within a show combining music, dance and, often, a comic sketch of parodic and humorous content. From France, the revue spread to other countries such as England, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States, where Florenz Ziegfeld immortalised the genre with his Ziegfeld Follies from 1907 onward. In Spain, the revue became associated with the vernacular genres of the sainete and the zarzuela. The first Spanish revue was 1864–1865, though the genre reached full maturity only with La Gran Vía, which premiered in Madrid in 1886 and, a year later, in Buenos Aires, founding with that premiere the tradition of the Spanish revue in the Río de la Plata region.
Political satire, a fundamental element of the later revista criolla and revista porteña, has a long theatrical tradition in Buenos Aires. For example, during the government of Nicolás del Campo, viceroy of the Río de la Plata between 1784 and 1789, the tonadilla (a song used as a theatrical interlude) La tirana was written openly criticising him. Later, the leading performer of political satire during the Argentine independence period was the criolla singer Ana Rodríguez Campomanes, active on the Buenos Aires stage between 1816 and 1839. Following Justo José de Urquiza's pronouncement against governor Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1851, satirical closing sketches against the general flourished, such as El entierro del loco, traidor, salvaje unitario Urquiza, staged that year at the original Teatro Argentino (formerly the Coliseo Provisional).
There are conflicting opinions about the precursors of the revue in Argentina. Scholars of Argentine theatre have repeatedly cited El sombrero de Don Adolfo by , premiered in 1875, as the first precursor of the revista porteña.