It's always a pleasure to come and listen to Marina HerediaShe is an artist who has built a solid career, who has earned her prestige through her talent and professionalism, and who has continued to grow without ever losing sight of who she is. and where it comes from.
And it is precisely from this awareness of their race, of the tortuous path that the Roma people have traveled since the beginning of time, that this show called Freedom!championing the cause from a sense of belonging and the pain inherited throughout the centuries.
Accompanied, as has been the custom for years, by her faithful Jose Quevedo, Bolita, who sustains the entire musical architecture of the work with his guitar, and alongside the piano of Pablo Suarez and the always accurate and precise percussion of paquito gonzalezMarina gradually revealed to us a series of topics that, although clearly based on canteThe specific ones mostly have the structure and spirit of a song.
To begin with, like a good gypsy, she gives her patriarch, her father, his due. Jaime the Parron, who tears through the silence singing tonás, until his daughter, leaning on his shoulder, bursts into song, which seems to us like an anthem to which they will return at different moments of the show: SWe are the mistreated and hated race, repressed and hurt.
"His power, his great quality as an artist, his stage presence and his natural elegance, along with his knowledge of the canteHer professionalism in putting together her proposals and her chameleon-like attitude make Marina Heredia one of the best flamenco singers on the current scene. flamenco»
Always with the freshness of telling the story with new lyrics, we listened to traditional songs, haunting lullabies in which Marina was deeply moved and moved us all, tangos from Granada, bulerías, and rumbas. Lyrics that narrate abuse, fear, and resilience, and that resonate with us so much not just because we've heard them before, which is also true, but because history is repeating itself right now, as I write these lines, in another town, with another language, and in another part of the world, but the sorrows, the humiliations, the injustices, hard as it may seem, are the same.
The light goes out and we hear a heartfelt monologue from Juan Fernandez that shakes us – once again, in a show that never stops doing so – with that ability to communicate and make us feel that the Sevillian actor has.
Marina Heredia returns and sings a song for us, accompanied by piano, about the innocence of children, violated by violence. And after a few words in which she comments on how man stumbles over the same stone a million times, she reminds us that in this story not everything is sorrow; there is also room for joy and fun. cante It is pain, but it is also celebration, and it takes us to the flamenco gatherings of Granada to interpret La mosca.
The farruca dedicated to his uncle Manolete, a great flamenco dancer who included this in his repertoire palo flamenco, gave way to a flamenco party, with its remembrance of Camarón and its touch of couplets, where all the members had their moment in the spotlight, with the voices of Manuela Moya y Carmela GilThe Catalan rumba provided the finishing touch. John the Egyptian, which commemorates the first gypsy who arrived in Spain and, incidentally, pays tribute to Peret and Small fish, which brought the show to a close with the audience on their feet.
But you might say I haven't yet commented on Marina Heredia's singing. Well, it was a true display of talent for over an hour and a half, magnificent vocally, without ever letting up, caressing the lower notes without ever going off-key, and soaring into the higher registers that gave us goosebumps. Her power, her great quality as an artist, her stage presence that fills the room, and her natural elegance, along with her knowledge of the canteYes, the professionalism with which she puts together her proposals and her chameleon-like attitude make her one of the best flamenco singers on the current scene flamenco.
Credits
Free!, by Marina Heredia
Soho Caixabank Theatre in Malaga
March 12th 2026
Capacity: practically full
Cante: Marina Heredia
Guitar: Jose Quevedo Bolita
Piano: Pablo Suarez
Percussion: Paquito Gonzalez
Palmas and choirs: Carmela Gil, Manuela Moya and Diego Montoya
