Mayda Prado Alfonso

Cuban-American soprano Mayda Prado carries out the work in Cuernavaca of transmitting to new generations of singers the knowledge she has acquired through great teachers such as María Callas.

She was born in La Habana. From childhood, Mayda Prado had attraction and facility for singing. In 1961 she began her music studies in Nueva York with German professor Kurt Scholssberger, who introduced her to Italian classical song and the lied.

In 1967, through baritone Robert Merrill, she entered the classes of Samuel Margolis. During this period she made her debut in the roles of Nedda, from Los payasos, by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, and Musetta, from "La Bohème", by Giacomo Puccini.

Subsequently, soprano María Callas selected her to participate in her Master Classes at the Juilliard School. Between 1984 and 1987, she completed a bachelor's degree, master's degree and part of the doctorate that normally takes six years.

"I graduated from a school in Nueva York called The Juilliard School". She entered it having already taken her first steps as a soprano.

"And I didn't have time to spend 6 or 7 years there. I asked that, in order to complete my credits, they give me exams. And I passed them all. They gave me the credits I needed and the rest I worked on in those three years. It was very, very, very difficult". At this teaching center Mayda Prado continued her training under the guidance of Daniel Ferro, and graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor and a Master of Music. From Nueva York she moved to Milán, Italia, and in that city she took advanced classes with Gina Cigna.

With nostalgia in her gaze, Mayda remembers her teachers. "I had three wonderful teachers. The first was when I was seven and a half years old, I was a child, and without his light and knowledge I would not be the person I am today; he was like a father to me".

"But my second teacher, whose name was Samuel Margolis (of whom I have a portrait in the living room of my house) taught me something primordial for every singer who begins: there are teachers who believe that when a singer begins his studies, he should be given easy works so that, in that way, the voice begins to develop.

But my teacher taught me to challenge the voice, without it having to strain in order to sing. With the voice that one has, that nature and God have given you, you can sing more difficult works. That challenges the student and he strives and achieves faster development than if we do it the other way". That guidance her teacher gave her at age 13 is the way she now transmits to her students.

Mayda had the privilege of being a student of the great American soprano María Callas, who taught classes at Juilliard School in 1971, when Mayda was 16 years old. She remembers that 80 percent of Callas's students were from the school "and I had nothing to do with it".

The other 20 was because Callas opened auditions for any singer from NY. "In my mind, at that age, I had no hope. I said who would choose me, being so young, with hundreds, thousands of people who were going to audition".

However, someone who knew her talent proposed to her: "If you go, audition and she chooses you, I'll pay for all those classes. Since I had nothing to lose, I went, auditioned three times and had the great honor of being one of the chosen, not only for the first semester, but two: from September to December 1971 and from February to May 1972. Those were the only classes Callas taught in her entire career".

At such a young age, Prado couldn't imagine the weight of having that teacher. "When you are very young, you don't realize who you have in front of you". The classes taught by Callas had 22 students, so Mayda, in her classes, also chooses 22 singers.

"In México, singing is an energy. You walk out anywhere in México, and people sing with ease; it's a natural matter".

This is something that teacher Prado has noticed and is one of the things that excites her about living in our country, "it is a blessed people". Besides, singing rancheras is not easy at all, "they don't sing with microphones and you have behind you a mariachi that when it plays, if you don't have volume and you don't know how to sing, you can't be heard", comments the Cuban-American.

She believes that in México, for singers access to a quality class is complicated due to high costs, and she is in favor of showing consideration for talented people, but who economically don't have stability. "Normally the great talents are those who have nothing", says the artist based in Cuernavaca.

The international soprano applauds the decision to have created the first Opera Company in Morelos. "That was a great achievement and we have to support the Instituto de Cultura de Morelos, the director, maestro Jesús Suaste, the Teatro Ocampo, the Centro Morelense de las Artes". But she also advocates for participation and support among all these institutions and the rest of the music schools: "In unity is strength and that is what we have to achieve right now.

"With God's favor, the Company will be directed at those Mexican singers who already have a career, however modest, but they need to be made known and made to sing here and there.

"It is through the art of these great talents that we gain culture", expresses the native of Morelos at heart, and adds: "México has great sensitivity, it is endowed with creation in many forms, among them, literature, plastic arts and music, and with all that we have the opportunity to elevate culture so that it can be recognized throughout the entire world".

She has performed with several opera companies, including:
Opera Theater of St. Louis.
Dayton & Toledo Opera.
Ópera Colombiana.
Metropolitan Opera
Young Artistic Program.
State Opera of Connecticut.
Long Island Lyric Opera.
Garden State Opera.
Ópera Nacional de Cuba.

She has also given concerts with:
La London Symphony
St. Louis Symphony
Nova Scotia Symphony
Filarmónica de Caracas
Brooklyn Philarmonic
North Jersey Symphony
Bergen Philarmonic
Eastern Philarmonic de Greensboro, Carolina del Norte
Recitals

She has offered recitals in:
Estados Unidos,
Alemania,
Suiza,
Italia,
And in several countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Some Cuban and foreign composers have dedicated works to her:
Hilario González
Harold Gramatges
Tulio Peramo
José Raúl Bernardo
Luis Felipe Ramón Rivera
Frank Di Giacomo
At the Spanish Institute of New York she offered a cycle of Cuban songs from the 19th and 20th centuries.

She was a member of the Singing Jury of the International Competition Tribute to Ernesto Lecuona, sponsored by the Instituto Cubano de la Música and the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores de España, an occasion in which she offered a recital, in which she included:

La regata veneciana (three songs in Venetian dialect), by Gioachino Rossini.
The cycle Love and life, by Robert Schumann.
Au bord de l'eau, Clair de lune and Toujours, by Gabriel Fauré.
La maja, by Enrique Granados.
Pastorcito santo, by Joaquín Rodrigo.
Cantares, by Joaquín Turina.
Chanson galante, by Hilario González.
La niña tropical, by José Mauri.
Los sones de Manzanillo, Los dos príncipes and Estribillo, by Enrique Ubieta.