# Cuban-Italian soprano debuts at the Puccini Chamber Opera Festival

**Date:** 05/16/2021

The Cuban-Italian soprano Mónica Marziota made her debut yesterday at the Puccini Chamber Opera Festival with the world premiere of 'Redención', a work by composer Johanny Navarro with a libretto by José Félix Gómez, both Puerto Ricans.

The event organized by the Cluster Association in collaboration with the Teatro del Giglio, was inaugurated in virtual format and live broadcast over the internet on May 8th in the Tuscan city of Lucca, birthplace of the great Giacomo Puccini, under the artistic direction of Girolamo Deraco.

The festival will run until July 31st with the participation of premiere works by young composers from Australia, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the United States, and Italy.

'Redención' is a fictional opera in one act inspired by real events, which tells the story of a mother –interpreted by Mónica– who wishes to go to prison to meet her daughter's killer in order to forgive him because she needs to find inner peace in this way.

I believe this should be known, especially today, not only for the story itself, but also for the message, because it is important that human beings, despite all we have suffered or experienced, find within ourselves that light that is often achieved through forgiveness, the singer pointed out.

When referring to her participation in the premiere of the work –conceived for soprano, baritone, and a small musical ensemble– she said that the author is a woman, a position from which it is 'very difficult' to have 'such an important space in a theater with so much tradition'.

She also upheld the condition of being Latin American and Caribbean women of both, born in countries that are of one bird the two wings as the Puerto Rican poet and independence fighter Lola Rodríguez de Tió (1843-1924) wrote in her famous poem 'A Cuba'.

Descendant of a Cuban mother and Calabrese father, Mónica Marziota proudly carries her binational heritage, with a strong emotional bond with the Cuban capital, where she was born, grew up, and received her basic artistic training from age six in the conservatories Alejandro García Caturla, Manuel Saumell, and Amadeo Roldán.

Although her initial training was in piano and choral directing, she decided very early on for lyric singing, a specialty in which she continued developing herself in institutions in Canada and Italy, where she completed her master's degree in Musicology at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'.

During the confinement imposed by measures to face the Covid-19 pandemic, this young artist who combines singing with musicology, founded with other researchers, composers, performers, and artists in general, the digital publication 'Ecce Música Magazine' of which she is the editorial director.