In new 'Buena Vista Social Club' musical, a legendary Cuban album comes to life onstage
The bestselling 1997 album of Cuban, string-infused traditional music that became a global hit inspired a new Broadway show. NBC News sat exclusively with some original members in Havana.
HAVANA — In a rattan chair with a large oval backrest, almost like a throne, the 94-year-old “Diva” of Buena Vista Social Club, Omara Portuondo, sat in her home in Cuba as she reminisced about her life and storied career, both of which inspired the main storyline of a Broadway show premiering Wednesday.
The "Buena Vista Social Club" musical is based on the Cuban musicians who came together in 1996 to record the bestselling album of the same name, whose popularity spread around the globe and immortalized the traditional music of a bygone Cuba, introducing those classic songs to the world.
The show dramatizes, with some creative liberties, the recording of that iconic album, released in 1997, while also flashing back to 1950s Cuba, when Portuondo and the other musicians were young and singing live at the original Buena Vista Social Club venue before it was shut down following the Cuban Revolution.
Portuondo and two other living members of the original Buena Vista Social Club music collective, Barbarito Torres and Amadito Valdés, spoke to NBC News exclusively from their homes in Havana ahead of the Broadway musical’s premiere.
Looking regal while wearing an intricately knotted yellow headband and a patterned green tunic, Portuondo said, “Of course, it’s good to be in the musical.”
Rating: 5