Lucy Proveda Núñez

Lucy Provedo Núñez is a woman whose simplicity is surprising; she moves from one place to another with the agility of a girl and her face still reveals the smile of an adolescent.

She was born in Marianao, Ciudad de La Habana. As a child, when visitors arrived at the house, she would almost "plant" them in the seats so they could hear her sing. Dolls were her first audience; she would compose and perform songs for them, and she also performed before the small image of an artist that she drew in her bedroom mirror.

In keeping with the saying "from singing parents come songbird children," the girl loved music as much as or more than her parents did. Her father greatly enjoyed symphonic works. There was a concerto for piano and orchestra, Federico Chopin's Opus 11, which she now admits she was bold enough to conduct as it became customary for her to entertain any moment of the day within the home. The voice of Esther Borja also repeatedly escaped from the old and sturdy record player of the "old man."

Piano studies came first, which she soon combined with vocal training. Around that time, where the San Alejandro school stands today, there was a small center for primary education that in the afternoons became the Ignacio Cervantes conservatory. There, under the direction of professor Viola Ramírez, she joined a children's choir of which she was the soloist. Over time, and at her mother's insistence, she enrolled in the Alejandro García Caturla conservatory and simultaneously pursued careers in piano and voice.

She studied at the García Caturla Conservatory in Marianao, where she graduated in 1965, and later at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory in La Habana with teacher Margarita Horruitiner; she completed her training in 1969.

In 1970 she won First Mention in the national music competition of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba in voice, and received the First Prize in 1973. Since 1970 she has performed throughout the country in concerts, as well as on radio and television.

Her repertoire includes vocal works by composers from preclassical to contemporary periods. Several composers and orchestra directors entrusted Lucy with the Cuban premieres of important works: Harold Gramates, Héctor Angulo, Diez Nieto, Calixto Álvarez. She also performed the premiere of Pierrot Lunaire here, a work that, as she emphasizes, handles a concept of the human voice totally different from what we can typically hear.

She graduated in voice studies from the Instituto Superior de Arte (1981) and perfected her vocal technique with Giulietta Simionato in Milan, Italy.

She made her public debut with a recital in 1970. She joined the Teatro Lírico Nacional de Cuba in 1978. That same year she participated in the concert spectacular El nacimiento de la ópera (Renaissance music) and later appeared in the Cuban works Patria (Aurelia, 1979); Cecilia Valdés (Isabel Ilincheta, 1984) and the premieres of Soyán (r. t., 1980) and El triunfo de la rebelión (1983). She also sang El barbero de Sevilla (Rosina, 1980) and Rigoletto (Gilda, 1984). Lucy Provedo has also developed an intense and relevant activity in recitals and concerts, presenting Cuban premieres of works by Brouwer, Guerrero, Bloch, and Orff.

She has performed in several European countries —Rigoletto (Gilda, 1982) at the Smetana Theater in Prague—, Central America, Asia, and Africa.

She has conducted notable work in promoting Cuban music in various television programs, films, and her record releases. She currently works as a soloist at the Centro Nacional de la Música de Conciertos. She is a recipient of the prestigious Medalla Alejo Carpentier (2002).

The list would be endless when mentioning Lucy Provedo's performances in the country and abroad; perhaps some could illustrate the talent of her voice, the discipline of her studies, the bold and persevering nature of her character: the cantata Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, a very complex work created for soprano, countertenor, and baritone, conducted for this performance by maestro Manuel Duchesne Cuzán with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, with the participation of the Coro Nacional and the Orfeo Catalán. She also premiered a very contemporary and very difficult opera titled Llanto para el Cachorro, a composition by Colombian Francisco Zumaqué, which was accompanied for the occasion by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional under the direction of Yugoslav maestro Angel Surev. In that work a single voice interprets two characters.

Without a doubt, her performance in Rigoletto was one of the most important artistic events in Lucy Provedo's professional career.

"I studied that work, but I hadn't done it in Cuba and then they invite me to do it in Prague. My debut in Rigoletto was with the Prague Opera, and the curious thing is that I had been told they sang it in Italian and when I got there, they sang it in Czech. I don't know anything about Czech. I had learned the work in Italian, which is how it was originally written. It was a tremendous experience and it gave me the impulse to continue… Imagine, them in Czech, and me in Italian!"

During her visit to that beautiful European city, she also sang on Radio Praga Internacional works by maestro Harold Gramates, by Félix Guerrero, her husband, and by two Spanish composers, Manuel de Falla, and a compilation of works by García Lorca, which he compiled and harmonized from the Spanish popular songbook.

Maestro Félix Guerrero was her companion in life and in art for 21 years. Without hesitation, Lucy assures that thanks to his influence, today she is a very optimistic woman.

Among Lucy Provedo's most recent works is the recording of an album with the Colibrí label, accompanied on piano by maestro José Ruiz Elcoro. The CD includes part of the music that was sung in Cuba in the nineteenth century. It is an excellent rescue effort that also benefits lyric performers, who have traditionally been most affected by the lack of promotion, although the dissemination work maintained for many years by radio station CMBF deserves to be highlighted.