The Story of Ada Falcon

I HAVE to tell you the story of Ada Falcon - which was reated to me this afternoon by my tango teacher Natacha. She asked me what tango music I like and who I knew. I had arrived a little before the hour of my workshop and went next door to an antique shop from where old tango music was blasting from a wind up gramaphone. I went inside and started browsing through old 78's( I have a windup at home and have always wanted to get some tango 78's)..the shop owner didnt have who I asked for but I kept seeing the name Ada Falcon on the shellac discs I was looking through. I'd heard her years ago, when I went to Havanna and did some tango at the Tango Achive there. I made a note of her name becuase I liked her voice so much. She was very famous in the 1930's and early 1940's. She sang with a famous Tango orchestra and was the lover of the leader of the orchestra, who messed her around; two timing her and promising always they would be together but it never happened. One day Ada Falcon decided she'd had enough of this unrequited love and she quit and just dissappeared. She spent the rest of her life in a monestary in Cordoba but until she was into her very old age no one knew what happened to her. Apparently, just before she died an tv programme maker tracked her down and interviewed her - mostly off camera as she didnt want to be seen by the public in her old age. The TV interviewer played her some of her most popular old recordings. Then apparently, this shrunken 91 year old lady, from behind the grill of the monestary window - began to sing, beautifully, as she had done in her hey day. Her voice was still great and almost unchanged. I almost wept a little when I heard this very moving tale. And Natacha and I danced in the close embrace to Ada Falcon for much of the unbearabley humid late afternoon.

Well, I m just a soft old romantic at heart.But I thought that was such a moving little story, I wanted to share it .

BG