The fusion of words, music, and images, a joint creation of Colombian photographer Óscar Perfer and pianist María José de Bustos, Reflections on Macondo promises a dreamlike journey into the magical realist world of Gabriel García Márquez's most acclaimed novel on 14 March 2025, at the Bánffy Stage of the Eiffel Art Studios.
The fictional village of Macondo and the Buendía family are in the focus of Cien años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), by Nobel Prize laureate Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. Considered a masterpiece of Latin American and universal literature, it is the second most read work in Spanish in the world, only surpassed by Don Quixote, translated into 46 languages and with an approximate sale of 30 million copies to date.
Colombian photographer Óscar Perfer makes an introspection of the masterpiece through these timeless characters, with contemporary phenotypes, from an artistic vision. Through the peculiar aesthetic of portraits framed in his pictorial lighting technique, where the viewer feels observed through their hypnotic looks, giving the possibility to dive into the Macondian world.
The audience can discover each of the photographs with the characters that Perfer has captured from his perspective during a recital featuring atmospheric works by Debussy, Satie, Bartók, Schubert, and Spanish composers performed by the pianist María José de Bustos, each of the photographs with the characters that he has captured from his perspective. The unique layout of the auditorium with reduced capacity ensures an intimate space where viewers can immerse in this artistic encounter born from the fusion of words, music and images, and the thoughtful staging becomes a discovery of the titular “solitude” with great aesthetic, visual and sound potential.
The performance of Reflections on Macondo at the Eiffel Art Studios marks another occasion in the collaboration between the Hungarian State Opera and the Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo in Bogotá. As part of this partnership, opera singer Andrea Szántó was invited to the Colombian capital in 2023 to perform the role of Judith in Bartók's Bluebeard’s Castle, while in 2024, principals Gergő Ármin Balázsi and Tatyjana Melnyik of the Hungarian National Ballet starred in the lead roles of The Nutcracker.
