HAVANA, July – A glance at an old "Pro-Arte Musical" music society brochure shows that between November 1955 and May 1956 violinists Zino Francescatti and Isaac Stern performed in Cuba, as well as pianists Rudolf Serkin and Arthur Rubinstein, and the baroque music ensemble "Virtuosi
di Roma." The opera season for the same period included singers like Antonieta Stella, Gianni Poggi and Aldo Protti.
Artists like these were the stars of that era. Renata Tebaldi sang for two seasons and Maria Callas was eagerly expected for the 60-61 season. Admission, for students, was 50 cents, and many took advantage of the reduced price.
Cuba was an important venue for music since the XIX century. Fanny Essler and Anna Pavlova danced in Havana; Enrico Caruso, Titta Ruffo and Adelina Patti performed frequently.
The Philharmonic Orchestra and "Pro-Arte Musical" presented Marian Anderson and David Oistrach as late as the sixties. Later, things started changing a little. Headliners didn’t come as often. Programs by the National Symphony Orchestra came down a notch in quality. Since the
orchestra didn’t have its own concert hall, sometimes it wasn’t even clear where the performances would be held.
Lately, in the same plaza where Stravinsky conducted his Firebird and von Karajan directed Beethoven’s Ninth, the public can attend performances that remind one of an old long-playing record titled "Classical Music for Those Who Don’t Know Anything about Classical Music."
For this year’s season, which ended June 18, the most notable offering was Orff’s Carmina Burana, ably performed by the Symphony Orchestra and choruses from Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
The musical education of youths is misleading; they are led to believe they are knowledgeable, but really they have a very shallow grounding in the classics. There is only one radio station dedicated to classical music, and sometimes it broadcasts programs that have nothing to do with music. On
TV, there are only two programs a week that showcase serious music, and one of them confuses good music with pleasant sound. In a recent program, it played José Carreras in an aria from Turandot and Celine Dion in the Titanic song, back to back.
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