“Each person decides how he wants to live and die too,” the artist said
14ymedio, Havana, December 30, 2024 — Omara Portuondo has long been taking two fundamental things to her concerts: a doctor who monitors her health and a chair from which she offers her songs. It’s also been a long time since the followers of the 94-year-old artist predicted her departure from music, and last October the news finally arrived.
After an episode of disorientation on a stage in Barcelona, Ariel Jiménez, son and agent of the diva of the Buena Vista Social Club, announced her retirement. However, exactly a month later, another statement by Portuondo left the public perplexed: “I am not retiring from music.”
Before the stumble at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, Portuondo’s active career was already generating controversy among her followers, but the episode of “fatigue” that caused the artist to stop singing Lágrimas negras was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The audience, who paid up to 75 euros for a ticket, shouted “exploiters” and “let her rest” to the organizers, to which Ethiel Failde, director of the homonymous orchestra that accompanies her on stage, replied that the screams showed a lack of respect. “She herself asked to sing,” he said, and recalled that “Omara has always said that she wanted to die on stage.”
The audience, who paid up to 75 euros for a ticket, shouted “exploiters” and “let her rest” to the organizers
The justifications of the Portuondo team came shortly after, when Jiménez alluded to a “definitive retirement.” “By medical recommendation, the possibility that she continue to sing, rehearse and record, contributes favorably to her mental health, although at a moderate pace and always according to her physical condition. For this, periodic examinations are carried out, and her indicators are monitored,” he said at the time.
That same enthusiasm, Jiménez defended, was what led the family to organize together with the Cuza Agency and the Failde Orchestra, a tribute to the legendary Buena Vista Social Club group. “She would appear to interpret a few songs, from her condition as an exceptional protagonist of that project and in the same way she did with the original group,” said her son. There would be four concerts outside Cuba, two of which had already ended, in Gran Canaria and Colombia.
However, a statement from Portuondo weeks later explained that, although long and live concerts were now out of her reach – “I get tired, and it’s natural at my age” – she would continue to make recordings and “other activities” that her health allows.
A statement from Portuondo weeks later explained that she would continue making recordings
Also known as the Bride of Filin* she added: “As long as I have strength and people who want to listen to me, I will continue to sing. Because as I always tell you: music is in me, heaven, earth, sea and sun, joy and reason.”
Portuondo was born in 1930 and continues to be one of the great references of Cuban music abroad, but her career, especially on the Island – where she stopped singing years ago – was not free of stumbles either. Her loyalty to the regime and, in 2003, her initials on the letter that supported the shooting of the young people who hijacked the Regla ferry to escape to the United States, cost her the animosity of many followers.
However, if Omara Portuondo has made something clear, it is that she has always lived according to her own rules. “With respect for all the people who sincerely appreciate me, each person decides how they want to live and die too.”
* A style of singing resembling a jazz ballad, championed by Portuondo.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
