# Holguín says goodbye to lyric singer María Dolores Rodríguez Cabrera

**Date:** 08/24/2021

The people of Holguín said goodbye on August 21st to soprano María Dolores Rodríguez Cabrera, leading figure and general director of the Teatro Lírico Rodrigo Prats in Holguín, who died as a result of COVID-19.

A graduate in English Language from the Instituto Superior Pedagógico José de la Luz y Caballero and in Music, with a focus on singing, from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), María Dolores Rodríguez Cabrera left a mark of more than three decades at the Teatro Lírico, continuing the work of her teachers Raúl Camayd and Náyade Proenza, and other valuable figures of that important cultural institution in the country.

Together with the Lírico and as a solo performer, she performed on stages in more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas, with approximately 40 works in her repertoire, including operas, operettas, zarzuelas and concert pieces.

In her fruitful lyric career, the renowned Cuban soprano recorded for television stations and was awarded and invited as a jury member in various national and international competitions.

More than one generation had María Dolores as a close teacher and many of her students, whom she felt proud of, put her teachings into practice today in renowned academies and companies in several countries.

Her last work was La viuda alegre, an operetta in three acts with music by Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár and libretto in German by Victor Léon and Leo Stein, based on the comedy L'attaché d'ambassade by Henri Meilhac. Re-premiered in Holguín after a preview in November 2019, at the beginning of 2020 her company presented the work in Matanzas and at the Gran Teatro de La Habana.

María Dolores Rodríguez (1966), considered in the nineties the most awarded Cuban lyric singer, was not only one of the most beautiful voices on the national stage and the director of a great company, but also the teacher of several generations of lyric artists, trained with her dedication in the classrooms of the Universidad de las Artes in Holguín.