Carlos Bernardino Astiazaraín Cabrera

Cuban tenor and stage director.

He trained at the Seminario San Carlos, where he studied singing between 1939 and 1945 with Benito Rentería. He later perfected his vocal technique with Arturo Bovi, Francisco Fernando Dominicis, Piedad de Armas, María Adams, Maryla Ganowska and José Ojeda, among others.

In 1954 he went to New York to pursue specialized studies in singing with J. Berrocal, L. Dell' Orafice, Resati and Martinelli; and in Stage Direction at the Peadody Institute of Theatrical Arts, where he completed a course in Actor's Conducting with Henri Courboin. Here he worked for the first time as an opera stage director, at the Jean of Arc Auditorium in New York in 1954, with the Puma Opera in the work La Sonámbula. That same year he continued studies in stage direction in Rome with Alcy Azzolini, and five years later, in Havana, with Ludjek Mandaus.

He debuted as a singer in the Choir of the Cathedral of Havana in 1937, and four years later, on the radio, as a soloist at the Ideas-Pazos Station.

His opera debut was in 1947 with the work Don Pasquale with the Association of Friends of Opera and as director of opera choruses in the City of Udine, Italy in 1957.

He began his professional work, between 1946 and 1959, as a choir member, secondary figure or walk-on in different operas at the Sociedad Pro Arte Musical in the Teatro Auditórium. He also performed as a member of the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra and worked in secondary roles and as assistant director in operas, operettas and zarzuelas with various companies.

During that same period he performed in important theaters in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts as a choir member. He also worked in several theaters in Italy, Venezuela and Spain, in the latter he debuted as a principal soloist in the zarzuela La Dolorosa. His extensive repertoire included operas, operettas and zarzuelas of different periods and styles.

Between 1963 and 1970 he held the position of Choir Director of the Grupo Teatro Lírico, later he was appointed Artistic Director of the Opera of Cuba, where he served until his death. His period of direction of this choir was fruitful in consolidating a collective of excellent singers; from it emerged a good number of soloists.

Another aspect of maestro Astiazaraín's work was his work as a stage director. With a realistic concept, he demonstrated a vast culture evidenced in the meticulous work he carried out, always attentive to the smallest details, which in the lyric genre have undisputed value.

Among the works he directed abroad, La Sonámbula, Lucía de Lammermoor, La Bohème, La Traviata, L'elixir d'amore, Rigoletto and Cavallería rusticana stand out, and in Cuba, Tosca, Don Pasquale, Madame Butterfly, Halka, El barbero de Sevilla, El trovador, Il Tabarro, El cafetal, Luisa Fernanda, María Belén Chacón, Soledad, Amalia Batista and Voy abajo.

In 1975 he realized his first staging for the company: La traviata, followed by the titles El barbero de Sevilla, Tosca, El triunfo de la rebelión. He also worked occasionally for the Lírico de Matanzas, to which he contributed the stagings of Il tabarro (1978) and Soledad by R. Prats (1983), among others, and for the Lírico de Pinar del Río, where he produced El bravo (1980); Voy abajo (1983) and María Belén Chacón (1984), the three by Rodrigo Prats. Possessing vast general culture, he was fluent in several languages and translated the operas Halka, Paria and Hemingway for their respective debuts at the Gran Teatro de La Habana.

Carlos Astiazaraín died in Havana on December 19, 1990.