The luxury of good art, and the quality and magic interpretations of the American singer, musician and songwriter, of Mexican descent, Julieta Venegas, assaulted the Havana National Theater artistic proscenium with ’Songs of Love’ on December 5. She arrived with her musicians to give us a concert without the roar of the leading international stars as part of the World Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls, promoted by the United Nations. This interpreter of Latin pop rock and winner of several Grammys, brought us with her fragile appearance and her performances ranging from the playful to the profound, lyrics that seem to emerge on the run and with the naive naturalness of her talent.
She gave us, with “Lemon and Salt,” the courtesy of a tequila with rum in Havana, to toast her songs expressing joy at being in Cuba for the third time. With “You For Me” she made it so that those of us who didn’t go to the theater experienced in our homes the emotions of that night, although we had to wait a few days for it to be broadcast on television. The soloist involves us in the complicit mystery of not knowing if she is telling us her songs or singing to us her experiences. I am pleased to say that the work and stage projection of that young woman pleased me. Simple and complex, green and ripe, naughty and candid, small and large; so I briefly define her in all her contrasts.
Juliet came to stay in the memory of the Cuban Romeos and all who admire her integrity and artistic quality. She is already among our favorite singers and I have learned this from the quality of her art, and not precisely through the wind…”
December 17 2012
