Domingo Conte: From the Cardboard Factory to Canaro's Stage

Domingo Conte was one of the voices that Buenos Aires heard everywhere in the early 1930s: on the stage of the Teatro Nacional, on Francisco Canaro’s records, and on the radio. Today he is almost forgotten, and much of his later life is undocumented. In a radio interview with the journalist Héctor Bates on Radio Belgrano, in the programme El tango y sus intérpretes, Conte told the story of his early years himself. A summary of that interview was reprinted in Revista Club de Tango in 1996. This page retells what he said, in our own words, and adds what independent sources record about this tango artist.

A boy from the Federal Capital

Conte was born in Buenos Aires on 10 January 1908, according to the Todotango biography by Néstor Pinsón, who places his birth on Pozos street (today Combate de los Pozos), about ten blocks from the National Congress. Pinsón dates the Bates interview to 1934. In it Conte said that he left school after the fifth grade to work. His first job, around 1919, was in a cardboard factory, where he stayed two years on a small monthly wage.

After work he sang in duet with a friend, Pascual Ferrandino, who later became an actor, in the doorway of the street. A man called Riverol heard them and offered to teach them the guitar. Pinsón gives his first name as Domingo. The two made their debut in an open-air pavilion at San Pedrito and Rivadavia, paid a few pesos each; at weekends the owner gave them a bottle of cane spirit to raffle for extra money.

Hard years on the road

The partners went their separate ways when the work dried up. Conte joined a comic duo led by his brother Francisco on a tour of the province of Buenos Aires. In Bates’s summary the tour was a disaster: the group was stranded in 25 de Mayo and could only travel on to 9 de Julio, by stagecoach, with help from a local man; two evenings there paid for the trip home.

Tired of hardship, Conte turned to the theatre and was hired at the Politeama Asamblea, a neighbourhood theatre. There the playwright and company director Juan Dardés saw him and took him into his company, where he stayed three years. Pinsón’s biography confirms the Politeama Asamblea and the three years with Dardés.

The Teatro Nacional

While Conte was playing the singing lead in El poncho del olvido with Dardés’s company at the Teatro Príncipe in Belgrano, the impresario Pascual Carcavallo of the Teatro Nacional saw him and invited him to an interview. Conte took the offer as a big step. He made his debut at the Nacional in a revival of El conventillo de la Paloma, singing the part that Libertad Lamarque had left. Carcavallo chose the tango Cruz de palo, which Conte credited to Cadícamo and Barbieri, for him and let him rehearse nothing else. On the opening night, Conte recalled, he had to sing it four times; the audience shouted for another song, simply because they were tired of the same one.

La muchachada del centro and Canaro

Canaro’s revue La muchachada del centro, with a book by Ivo Pelay, opened at the Teatro Nacional on 17 June 1932, according to Pinsón’s history of Canaro’s musicals. His cast list includes Tita Merello, Amanda Las Heras, Abelardo Farías and Domingo Conte. Conte told Bates that at first the management gave him nothing to do and hired Farías for the main singing role. Then Farías fell ill. Conte was called in, learned the whole part in an hour and a half, and by his own count played it in 700 performances. Pinsón gives about 900 performances for the whole run, which went on into the following year. When Ernesto Famá, Canaro’s regular singer, also fell ill, Conte took over the refrains with the orchestra.

The revue’s leading man sang two duets with Amanda Las Heras, the waltz El jardín del amor and the tango Rosa de amor. Pinsón’s biography of Conte lists Rosa de amor among the numbers he recorded with Canaro’s orchestra for Odeon in 1932, together with El anillo de oro, Las vueltas de la vida, Rencor and the paso doble Soy tu esclavo. Earlier, Pinsón adds, Conte had recorded for Columbia with the house orchestra of Alberto Castellanos, and between 1936 and 1940 he recorded with guitars; about thirty sides in all.

Radio: Chispazos de tradición

When the season at the Nacional slowed down, Conte asked Pablo Osvaldo Valle, head of LR3 Radio Belgrano, for work. Valle cast him in Chispazos de tradición, by Pinsón’s account the station’s biggest hit, as the title figure of El matrero de la luz; the next year he played José María in El puñal de los centauros. By then, he told Bates, he earned 450 pesos a month. Bates interviewed other artists on the same station, among them the bandoneonist Juan B. Guido.

Asked about tango, Conte said the new tango was beautiful to sing, but for dancing he preferred the old one. He liked jazz bands now and then, especially local ones; in his view the foreign bands that came to Buenos Aires were mostly second-rate.

Later years

Pinsón adds what Conte did after the interview. He played Gabino Ezeiza in De Gabino a Gardel (1933), sang on Radio Prieto and Radio Argentina, and sang in the films Bajo la santa federación (1935) and Pampa y cielo (1938). With his brother Carlos and a friend he invested in dance halls, among them the Palermo Palace. Pinsón writes that little is known of the last part of his life and that the date of his death is unknown; the header of the same Todotango page gives 12 December 1998. We have found no independent record that settles the question.

Sources

• Héctor Bates, “Las entrevistas con Bates: Domingo Conte”, radio interview (El tango y sus intérpretes, Radio Belgrano), reprinted in Revista Club de Tango no. 20, July–August 1996. Archived copy (archive.org, 2009). Childhood, cardboard factory around 1919, Ferrandino and Riverol, first performances, the tour with his brother, Politeama Asamblea, Juan Dardés, Carcavallo, Cruz de palo, replacing Farías (700 performances), refrains for Canaro, Chispazos de tradición, salary, opinions on tango and jazz.
• Néstor Pinsón, “Domingo Conte”, Todotango. Birth date and street, date of the Bates interview (1934), Riverol’s first name, Dardés and the Politeama Asamblea, Teatro Príncipe, Famá’s illness, Odeon recordings with Canaro (1932), Columbia recordings with Castellanos, guitar recordings 1936–1940, later stage, radio and film work, dance halls, uncertain death date.
• Néstor Pinsón, “The Canaros musicals (first part)”, Todotango. La muchachada del centro: opening 17 June 1932, Teatro Nacional, book by Ivo Pelay, cast, about 900 performances, the duets El jardín del amor and Rosa de amor.