Friday, October 08, 2004

A BLACK CUBAN TEENAGER AND THE OPERA



By Marietta Manso

I think that my future is in the operatic singing, and I know I must to sacrifice to get it, not stay out at nights, take care of my voice and, of course, never to smoke.

These are words of Oscar Castañeda Trujillo, while all the dreams of the world escape through his black eyes.
 At first sight he looks like every other boy: he´s thirteen years old, a mulatto, studies eighth degree in Fulgencio Oroz High School, in Havana, and get good grades... but there is something else, and it is he knows very where he´s heading to and how to get thereI was studying at the elementay school when my teacher Mercedes told me I had a nice voice and she encouraged to me to sing before my classmates. I did it, and people liked it, and then I realized I could sing.

Later, her mother made contact with professor Hugo Oslé and for a year more or less, every Thursday Oscar is discovering a world of sensations that improve his spirit, no matter how many sacrifices he had to do.

In the beginning, I didn´t like much to uit playing to study singing, but now I don´t even remember that, because I´ve understood that to reach the place I want, I must resign to other things.

The first time that he did a performance for the public was at the Astal movie theater, I´d never do it, but I followed professor Hugo´s instructions and everything was O.K. Later it would come presentations at the Amadeo Roldán Auditorium Theater, the Hubert de Blanck Theater and El Cacahual Tribune.

Supported by his school and his family, Oscarito goes ahead in a path he knows is hard, and sometimes he has to face some misunderstandings. My friends tell me I´m crazy because I like operas, and meanwhile, his eyes dream about Aída, Pagliacci or Mefistófeles, and from the bottom of her illusions he sings an aria.

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