Carmelina Santana Reyes

Lyric soprano and professor.

She was born in La Habana. She studied piano, theory, and solfege at the Conservatono Falcón, and voice at the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de La Habana, with Francisco Fernández Dominicis, with whom she perfected her skills as a performer and developed an operatic repertoire. She studied German lied interpretation with Luisa Lepa and Spanish song interpretation with Joaquín Nin.

Under the direction of Gonzalo Roig, she made her debut in 1938 as a soloist with the Compañía de Opera Nacional in La Habana. She performed in most of the theaters and cultural societies on the Island, and also in the United States, where she gave several private recitals. She performed with the accompaniment of the Orquesta Sinfónica de La Habana, the Orquesta Filarmónica, and other ensembles. In addition to singing in Spanish, she did so in French, English, Italian, German, Portuguese, and several dialects. She worked as a theory professor at the Conservatorio Hubert de Blanck from 1944 until the end of 1945, and between 1948 and 1960, as a voice, theory, and solfege professor at the Conservatorio Levy. She retired in 1960 from her artistic activities, although she continued teaching voice technique to young talented artists.

She was a member of the Ópera Nacional company, directed by Roig (1938-39), with which she participated in productions of La bohème and La traviata. In 1942 she premiered in Cuba the complete cycle of Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Miller's Daughter), by Schubert, alongside pianist Alfredo Levy. She was the only Cuban soprano accompanied in public performances by the illustrious composer Joaquín Nin.

In her later years she stood out as a voice teacher to several Cuban lyric artists—Ana Menéndez, María Eugenia Barrios, and Alina Sánchez, among others—.

She died in her native city in 1981.