Luna Manzanares: A Winning Card in the Upcoming Adolfo Guzmán Contest

August 11, 2019

In the role of host, Luna Manzanares is one of the important cards that Manolito Ortega has so that the Adolfo Guzmán Contest is a good spectacle in addition to a competition that promotes song in Cuba.

The acclaimed and respected director of programs such as La banda gigante, Sonando y Bailando en Cuba offers exclusive statements about controversial opinions that the renewed conception of the Guzmán has aroused:

-At this point in your game, the Adolfo Guzmán Contest, can you tell me how the preparations are going?

- The preparations are going very well, the jury has already selected the songs that will be in competition and we are mounting the pieces with the orchestra that will be La Banda Gigante after the arrangers did their work with each of the compositions. In addition, the performers are receiving interpretation classes, vocal technique classes as well as working with a speech therapist, all specialists of high prestige and with proven results. The set design is already almost ready and the technical conditions have been created at the Astral Theater for the entire event. The Revolution ballet is also rehearsing and we already have the program's soundtrack ready. However, as always with this type of program, although from the beginning it has the path and the purposes intended, it is not until it airs and we begin to gather the opinions of the viewers that it is not finished assembling and reaching its final structure.

-In the comments on the web, some have criticized the way the performers were chosen. How was that process? Why didn't the composers select who would defend their piece?

-Sometimes people venture to reach conclusions from ignorance. The program hasn't aired yet and very few people know what will happen in it. The composers chose their performers; we held the casting because there were many composers who had no idea who could interpret their themes, and that's why we decided to do the casting. The jury made a pre-selection of the performers looking for interpretive quality and from that selection many composers chose their performers; in other cases the composers defend their own theme and in others they brought us their proposals. For this Guzmán we decided that all the performers would be unknown, even though they were professional singers, but they had not had the opportunity to have excellent promotion and even though they had been in their careers for a while, they were unknown to the general public.

-How much of the traditional Adolfo Guzmán will your proposal have?

-I believe we will keep many things from the traditional Guzmán. The theme that has identified the Contest, No puedo ser feliz, by Adolfo Guzmán, (of course with a contemporary arrangement) will again be the central song of the contest; in addition to good interpretation, we will maintain the elegance and good taste that characterized the Contest; there will be special moments within the competition and the intermediate galas that will also be present. It is impossible to do a contest the same way as in the 80s; this will be totally renewed, with a different perspective on song in which contemporary song will be privileged and with the aesthetic codes of these times. We aim to achieve a competition that does not renounce its essence but that can renew itself over time and succeed not only in connecting with the generations that fondly remember the event, but also in dialogue with the new generations that do not know the contest and shows itself as something new for them. For this reason it is important to say that it was a request from Cuban Television to make 10 episodes of the contest and for it to become a participation proposal in the style of those we have carried out previously.

-Will you announce the hosts to me?

-For hosting the program we are betting on someone different. First, we want it to be a female figure and it will not be a duo but the entire hosting will rest on the shoulders of a single person. In this case we are betting on Luna Manzanares who will be in the role of host and not presenter. We wanted a singer who could split herself in hosting the space. We are betting on Luna because I think she would give credibility to the show because in addition to being a singer she is a composer and will feel identified with what happens in the program. We want to have a relaxed hosting and in each program pay homage to Adolfo Guzmán in her voice, from the perspective of musical theater and in that sense Luna has great experience from her participation in the musical Carmen la cubana.

-Can you tell me about some sections?

-The program is not going to have many sections. We don't have the same budgets so we are going to resolve most of it from the theater itself, although we do have an important section which is the history of the song, in which the composer tells us in first person what inspired him to compose the theme. We will have special moments each night as a tribute to great composers of our song, as well as the participation of musical groups.

What day will the first program be broadcast? And the last?

The first program will be broadcast on August 18th and the last one on October 20th.

Do you aspire for it to be a program as popular as the others you have directed?

Of course we aspire for it to be a popular program. I think there is a large audience that has been waiting for the contest for many years and we cannot disappoint them, and that is what we are working for.