Rita Montaner Singers – Artists
"La Única": Rita Montaner was one of Cuba's greatest artists, a singer, pianist and actress. She made the first recording of El manisero and was the first to sing Siboney.
About
Rita Montaner (Guanabacoa, 20 August 1900 – Havana, 17 April 1958) was a singer, pianist and actress. She worked in theatre, radio, film and television, and from the late 1920s into the 1950s was one of Cuba's most popular artists. She was classically trained as a soprano for zarzuela, but became famous with Afro-Cuban salon songs such as El manisero and Siboney.
- Training: from the age of ten at the Peyrellade conservatory in Havana. In 1917 she graduated in piano, singing and harmony, with a gold medal.
- Start (1922): in March 1922 she sang at a concert by Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, and in October on one of the first radio broadcasts in Cuba.
- Siboney and Mamá Inés (1927): in the zarzuela La Niña Rita she sang Mamá Inés, and on the same programme, at the premiere of Lecuona's La tierra de Venus, she sang Siboney.
- Records (1927–1929): about fifty songs for Columbia, including the first recording of El manisero.
- Abroad: she performed in Paris (the Olympia, and in Josephine Baker's revue), on Broadway in Al Jolson's Wonder Bar (1931) and in Mexico City, with Bola de Nieve as her accompanist.
- Tropicana (from 1946): for almost four years the main star of the midnight show, again with Bola de Nieve. Mongo Santamaría said this "launched the era of the Cuban cabaret super-productions".
- Radio, film and television: radio shows such as Mejor que me calle (1946–1948), films such as María la O (1949) and La Única (1954), and from 1954 the TV comedy Rita y Willy.
Throughout her career she stayed closely linked with two musicians from her hometown Guanabacoa: Bola de Nieve and Ernesto Lecuona. She also got Chano Pozo his first job at the radio, before his career took off.
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