María Remolá

Maria Remolá was called "The Cuban Nightingale" because her voice was beautiful, very well-timbered, capable of reaching the highest notes on the scale. There was a time in Cuba when when one spoke of a soprano, one spoke first of María Remolá. Hers was a solid career, recognized by the public and critics. And she was, assuming even the relative elitism of operatic art, a popular artist.

She was born in Barcelona where she spent a very happy childhood and early youth, and had parents who knew how to instill in her a taste and love for the fine arts: music, singing, theater. Many times she walked the path between her house and the famous Liceo de Barcelona, one of the centers of the finest operatic art in Spain, Europe, and the world.

She arrived in Cuba at age 14. María Remolá has said that she came to Cuba in 1952, after asking an aunt of hers who lived there to invite her to Havana for 15 days, and she never imagined that she would stay there for so many years, that she would become an artist beloved by the Cuban people, to the point of being considered Cuban.

In 1956 she was a singing student of Francisco Fernández Dominicis, and received advanced lessons with Bulgarian singer Liliana Yablenska.

She made her professional debut in 1958, with the Aguilá-Martelo company in the title role of the opera Marina, by Arrieta. In 1961 she was Doña Francisquita, by Vives, directed by Antonio Palacios at the Payret theater and in the television version.

With the National Lyric Theater of Cuba she took roles in operas such as Rigoletto, Don Pasquale, The Barber of Seville, La Traviata, and Lucia di Lammermoor, and in zarzuelas and operettas such as Luisa Fernanda, Los gavilanes, María la O, Bohemios, The Merry Widow, The Princess of the Czardas, and The Count of Luxembourg.

For two years she was the principal figure, alongside Armando Pico, in the grand show at the world-famous Tropicana cabaret in Havana.

"She met Ernesto Lecuona through Félix Guerrero, who was my husband. It was before a concert that Lecuona was preparing for the old Teatro Blanquita and the cast was already selected, so he told me I would perform the piece Andalucía. I pointed out to him that the piece had no lyrics, and we wrote them together," she narrated.

That's where her story really began. Then came the successes, the tours, the music…

She conducted artistic tours throughout the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea and Mexico, France, the United States, and Spain.

"Remolá recorded a program of arias with the National Symphonic Orchestra of Cuba, conducted by Guerrero (judging by the acoustics, probably from the 60s or 70s). Although her florid technique is considerable, and the brilliance of her highest register has its own elegance, there is a strange provincialism in her work. Remolá's tendency was to close the arias a third above the traditional high note. Rosina's aria in The Barber of Seville (sung in F) ends on a sharp A above high C, and the "Bell Song" from Lakmé ends on a sharp G-sharp above high C."

The music critics Nicholas E. Limansky and Joahn Carroll made a substantive assessment of María Remolá's technique, leaving this testimony: "Little is known about Cuban soprano María Remolá. According to the notes (notably unreliable) on one of her records, Remolá studied in Europe and has sung in Paris, in her native Cuba, in Washington, Russia, and Spain. Although North American audiences are not familiar with her, Remolá was, obviously, quite famous in her native Cuba, since she is mentioned in Strawberry and Chocolate, a Cuban film from the 80s, starring Jorge Perugorría and Vladimir Cruz. During one scene, while a character plays a record by María Callas, another notes how good it would be to hear another singer, besides María Remolá."

"Remolá recorded a program of arias with the National Symphonic Orchestra of Cuba, conducted by Guerrero (judging by the acoustics, probably from the 60s or 70s). Although her florid technique is considerable, and the brilliance of her highest register has its own elegance, there is a strange provincialism in her work. Remolá's tendency was to close the arias a third above the traditional high note. Rosina's aria in The Barber of Seville (sung in F) ends on a sharp A above high C, and the "Bell Song" from Lakmé ends on a sharp G-sharp above high C."

And they continue praising her work: "Although recordings can be misleading, her voice seems to have been a warm instrument, and sufficiently broad to allow her to easily handle the strength necessary for a successful 'Sempre libera' from Verdi's La Traviata, which she chose to conclude with an excellent, sustained A-flat above high C. The Latin vibration of her voice can sometimes become difficult, but she is quite capable of a controlled high pianissimo; the final phrase of 'Caro nome' jumps to a calm G-sharp in height that travels through a remarkable diminishment of tone to conclude in a mere whisper. Her best effort, however, is Adam's variations on 'Ah vous dirai-je Maman'. After an extraordinarily long and difficult cadenza with flute, Remolá ends with a sharp B above high C, the highest and most sustained note that any classical artist has ever recorded."

María Remolá has expressed the great affection that for more than 20 years she has shared with the Dominican people, "so similar to the Cuban in their character, their friendly sentiments, their love of music and dance…", just as they are similar, by their tropical and Caribbean nature, those two islands of Cuba and Hispaniola.

In the city of Santo Domingo, María Remolá reunited with that double Hispanic-Cuban root, continued singing, and over the years, passed on her experience to some young people not only in the secrets of technique and the art of singing, but small but wise life lessons: "study hard to always give quality in your profession; live intensely day by day, without clinging to the past; evolve, smile, love…"

The persistence of her Cubanness has, beyond a sentimental reason, an easy explanation in the fact that it was in Cuba where her brilliant artistic career developed. Thanks to her exceptional vocal gifts—beauty of sound, a range of more than two and a half octaves—and rigorous study of technique and artistic expression, she gave us countless unforgettable performances over three decades.

Thus, on the theatrical stage, concert halls, radio and television, and even in the world-famous Tropicana cabaret, she cultivated a broad repertoire in which the most well-known and demanding works for the so-called soprano coloratura stood out, and, naturally, Spanish and Cuban zarzuelas and lyrical songs.

In the early 70s, after almost 30 years in Cuba, she returned to Spain, but she could not live there without the warmth of the tropics, so she ended up settling in the Dominican Republic, where she engaged in an ardent, though quiet, teaching career. In 1985 in Santo Domingo her voice fell silent and she dedicated herself to teaching.

In 2011 María Remolá returned to Cuba fulfilling an invitation from UNEAC and the Opera de la Calle company. During the week of October 16-23, Remolá visited the headquarters of UNEAC, Opera de la Calle, the Society of Charity of Catalan Nationals, the National Lyric Theater Palace of Cuba, the television program "De la gran Escena," and was honored at the CMBF radio station. Moreover, a tribute concert was held in her honor with prominent young figures of Cuban lyric singing.

She spent her last years in a nursing home, they say around the vicinity of Quisqueya stadium. That woman with eyes that were once among the most beautiful that ever graced Havana.