123rd Birthday Anniversary of Mariana de Gonitch

Mariana de Gonitch Khustikaya was born on this day, February 5, 1900, in St. Petersburg. Her father, Chief of the Russian Navy, was concerned about her education and enrolled her in the Imperial Conservatory, where she was trained by the soprano Ana Pavlova and dancers Ana Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky.

She made her debut in Paris and continued her training with professors such as Cesare Esturani, Paul Lehérie and Elizabeth Kutcherra. She shared the stage with renowned artists such as Fedor Chaliapin, Tito Schipa, Lauri Volpi, Miguel Fleta, Iván Petroff and Pavel Lúdikar.

Her artistic career took her to the world’s most important concert halls and opera houses, including performances in Germany, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Holland, the United States, Switzerland and Cuba.

In 1940 she arrived in the largest archipelago of the Antilles. She appeared in a show on the RHC Cadena Azul radio station, directed by Rodrigo Prats, and hosted a musical show on Radio Mambí.

Around 1945, she founded a singing academy under her own name and, with a commitment to quality training and a love of teaching, laid the foundations for the development of Cuban lyrical singing.

Since Esther Valdés, one of the Academy’s first students, many internationally renowned voices have been trained at the Academy, including Fernando Álvarez, Mario Travieso, Alina Sánchez, Maggie Carlés, Isaac Delgado and Maribel Ferrales, to name but a few.

Hugo Oslé, who was a student and friend of Mariana’s, continued his teacher’s pedagogical work with the re-foundation of the Academy on April 7, 2008.

For him, de Gonitch was the goddess of bel canto, and on more than one occasion he has expressed his admiration for her. «Mariana was the inspiration, the mirror in which all of us who were attracted to the art of singing wanted to see ourselves reflected. I was impressed by her personality; I felt captivated by the presence of an artist of great beauty and elegance.»

123 years after her birth, we continue to pay tribute to and respect the work of a diva who has marked the training of several generations of opera singers with a special work that testifies to her love of teaching.