Alba Marina Fernández Valdés

Mezzo-soprano. Cuban lyric singer, founder of Cuban television, she performed songs, zarzuela romances and opera arias in different Cuban theaters and made her debut on important stages in multiple countries.

Cuban opera counted among its most notable divas a woman who went by the name of Alba Marina. This excellent mezzo-soprano singer, her vocal range was among the most beautiful within lyric music in the greatest of the Antilles.

She was born in the Havana neighborhood of La Víbora. She completed her first studies at the School of Music (New York).

She had the privilege that few others had, of being an exclusive artist for seven years with the NBC network in New York, a state that fell at her feet because of her wonderful voice and impeccable vocal technique praised, furthermore, by the specialized critics of that great city, where she shared the stage with other established stars such as: Nat King Cole, Maurice Chevalier, Hugo del Carril, Libertad Lamarque and the mythical Mexican actress María Félix.

She was a founder, in 1950, of television in Cuba, in which she performed songs, zarzuela romances and opera arias by Gonzalo Roig, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Ernesto Lecuona, Rodrigo Prats and Gilberto Valdés; by the Spaniard Manuel de Falla; by the Russians Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninov, and by the Frenchman Jules Massenet.

She participated in the Supreme Court of Art, a program that sought new stars, which was broadcast on the CMQ circuit; later she performed on the Mil Diez radio station and at the Teatro América.

She developed her magnificent abilities as an actress at the National Lyric Theater of Cuba, of which she was a founder in 1962. She excelled in the operas "The Barber of Seville" and "Il Trovatore," as well as in some operetta and zarzuela titles. Her repertoire included works by Cubans Adolfo Guzmán, Gonzalo Roig, and others.

In 1954, after completing her studies in New York, she made her debut on January 9 on NBC Radio in New York, on the program Coke Time. In that city she shared the stage with Nat King Cole, Maurice Chevalier, and Libertad Lamarque. Upon returning to Cuba, she performed at the Teatro Martí, performing in the first act of the operetta "The Merry Widow" by Franz Lehár.

The sadly defunct Teatro Martí saw her perform in the role of The Merry Widow (Franz Lehár) and in 1959 she was part of the cast of the show Cuba canta y baila alongside the Lago Sisters, Esther Borja, Benny Moré and Celia Cruz.

In 1962 she joined the cast of the National Lyric Theater (later Teatro Lírico Gonzalo Roig), in which she starred in the first production of this lyric institution: the zarzuela "Luisa Fernanda" by Spanish composer Federico Moreno Torroba.

Subsequently she would perform in various zarzuelas, in which she would interpret the characters of Adriana, "Los gavilanes," by Jacinto Guerrero; "Señá Rita," "La verbena de la paloma" by Tomás Bretón; Isabel Ilincheta, Cecilia Valdés by Gonzalo Roig, and María Pepa, "La revoltosa" by Ruperto Chapí.

In 1967, she began working as a founding artist of the National Opera of Cuba, in which she embodied the character of Suzuki in "Madame Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini, which would be followed by Fidalma in "Il matrimonio segreto" by Domenico Cimarosa; "Magdalena," Rigoletto, and "Azucena" in "Il Trovatore" by Giuseppe Verdi; "Madame Flora" in "The Medium" by Gian Carlo Menotti.

In 1982 she received the award for female performance at the Havana Theater Festival for her role in the lead of the opera La Medium by Menotti.

She toured Mexico, a country in which she participated, in 1984, in the Cervantino Festival; Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia and the Soviet Union.

In her native Cuba, in the United States, Canada, Germany, Puerto Rico, and other countries she shared her art with performances of operas, zarzuelas, lyric and concert songs. Works such as: Madame Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini), Rigoletto (Verdi), La Medium (Giancarlo Menotti), the zarzuelas Los Gavilanes, Luisa Fernanda, La verbena de la paloma and the very Cuban Cecilia Valdés (Gonzalo Roig); took on her voice renewed interpretations. She also included in her repertoire pieces by Manuel de Falla, Ernesto Lecuona, Adolfo Guzmán, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Jules Massenet.

Cinema delighted in her appearances in the films El recurso del método, Negocios tenebrosos and Gallego, the latter based on the novel of the same name written by Miguel Barnet, which was successfully brought to the big screen under the direction of Cuban filmmaker Manuel Octavio Gómez and starred by the excellent Spanish actors Sancho Gracía and Jorge Sanz.

Alba Marina, an example of perseverance, dedication, commitment and rigor; is part of the figures that are no longer present, although her essence remains there, intact, where only those "goddesses" that the most beautiful of the arts, perhaps without intending to, eternizes.

She died in her native city on December 9, 1994.