As a band and a brand, “Buena Vista Social Club” has been gold from the get-go: It was a hit Grammy-winning album that in 1996 had brought together an impromptu group of old-time Cuban musicians into a vintage 1950s recording studio in Havana. The album’s popularity turned some long-forgotten musicians into stars, which led to international tours, an acclaimed 1999 documentary, and then another film 18 years later. In 2023, it became an exciting Off-Broadway musical. “Buena Vista Social Club” is now an even better Broadway musical, opening tonight at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.
With many of the same multitalented singers, dancers and musicians who performed Off-Broadway, the show gets a far larger stage and more elaborate sound system for its electrifying concert of addictive rhythmic Cuban music. It again overlays a plot that alternates between two timelines — the making of the album in 1996, and the lives of the musicians involved forty years earlier, both eras still centering around singer Omara Portuondo, who is portrayed In the 1990s by Natalie Venetia Belcon and in the 1950s by newcomer Isa Antonetti.
In the transfer to Broadway, the plot is sharper, and the musical numbers even more engaging.
In my review two years ago, I wrote that I would have loved a program note that told us more about the music. They listened! The playbill now features a separate illustrated nine-page booklet that explains the story behind fifteen of the songs in the show – bolero, mambo, Afro-son, lullaby, descarga-style Cuban jazz – including snippets of the Spanish lyrics translated into English.
The page about “De Camino a la Vereda” (Off the Road, Onto the Trail) describes it as “straight talk for a friend who keeps leaving his woman for the next young thing. The song was originally written by Ibrahim Ferrer in the 1950s when he toured Cuba as a backup singer, but it was not recorded until four decades later at Egrem Studios as part of the original Buena Vista Social Club album.”
The page about “Silencio” (Silence) composed in 1932 by Rafael Hernandez Marin, “a jibarito (country boy) with the soul of a poet,” includes a quote from Omara Portuondo: “Ibrahim Ferrer asked me to sing Silencio with him, and for me that was a highlight of my life…..We had worked together in the past, but to find ourselves together again after so many years was a big thing. It was impossible for me to keep back the tears…”
I excerpt the info about these particular songs, because Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo were two of the album’s perfomers who became superstars, and because their relationship is a focus of the plot, and something of the beating heart of the musical. We are warned near the beginning of the show by Juan de Marcos (portrayed by Justin Cunningham), a driving force behind the album, that “some of what follows is true. Some of it only feels true.” Both statements seem to apply to the story of Ibrahim and Omara.
In 1956, 19-year-old Omara and her sister Haydee (Ashley De La Rosa) are singing as the Portuondo Sisters at the famed Tropicana, a swanky nightclub that caters to high-rolling tourists. Haydee hopes the gig will lead to an American recording contract that will get them out of Cuba, which is at the precipice of revolution, and enable them to tour the world. Omara is already less eager to leave, and more drawn to old Cuban music, when they meet their substitute accompanists for the gig (their regular backups unable to attend), guitarist Compay Segundo (Da’Von Moody) and pianist Ruben Gonzalez (Leonardo Reyna). After the gig, the two idly play “Veinte Anos” (composed in 1935 by Maria Teresa Vera and by the eventually unmasked lyricist Guillermina Aramburu, a song about a secret heartbreak.) Omara sings along. Impressed with her rendition – “You sing with so much feeling.” – they invite her to “this place in Marianao” where they are playing later that night
“Marianao? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“It’s a black establishment, so people make certain assumptions, But I promise you, it’s safe, and most importantly, no one tells us what to play.” The place is called the Buena Vista Social Club.
This is where she meets young Ibrahim (Wesley Wray), who sings Bruca Manigua (composed in 1937 by Aresenio Rodriguez, “a slave’s cry for humanity” its lyrics woven with African words, a song that was “a bolt of lightning and a complete turning point in Cuban music.” Sparks fly. Their relationship – an interracial one – is now much more clearly romantic. Off-Broadway, in a moment of mutual feeling, she gave him a peck on the cheek; on Broadway, it’s a deeply committed kiss. But the times (political, cultural, familial) keep them apart.
Forty years later, Omara is still so emotional about that time in her life that she’s reluctant to be involved in the album that Juan de Marcos is putting together.
At age 94, the real Omara Portuondo is still around (nominated for yet another Grammy just last year.) The others come back alive through the astounding talents assembled for this show, recreating the excitement of the original ensemble. There is the mix of street, ballet, modern, Cuban choreography by the husband wife team of Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck (Tony winner for Carousel and Illinoise); the playful call and response between guitarists and percussionists; the seductive singing by the regal Natalie Belcon as the mature Omara, by the suave Julio Monge as older Compay Segundo, by the swoon-worthy Wesley Wray as young Ibrahim Ferrer, as well as by Mel Semé when Ferrer is older. There are all the terrific instrumental solos, such as the virtuoso playing of the Tres guitar by Renesito Avich (who, like several of these first-rate musicians, also portrays a real-life character, Eliades Ochoa), and the flooring flute solo by Hery Paz in “Candela.” The title means Fire; it was composed in the 1940s by Faustino Oramas who took on the pseudonym El Guayabero to escape a homicidal military officer after the composer had a steamy affair with the man’s wife. The song “explodes with double meanings in sexy syncopation,” as it says in the booklet (which, by the way, is illustrated by Paz, the flutist.) It’s hard to think of another Broadway musical that has lavished so much attention on individual musicians
“Buena Vista Social Club” now ends with the singers and instrumentalists at Carnegie Hall in the 1990s — “a venue built for Mozart, Bach and Rachmaninoff” – performing a scorching reprise of“Candela” climaxing in the repeated phrase
Me quemó aé
Me quemó aé
Me quemó aé
Which roughly translates as “I’m burning up.” But you don’t need for me to tell you that, because that’s how the music will make you feel.
Buena Vista Social Club
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
Running time: Two hours including intermission
Tickets: $59 – $271
Book by Marco Ramirez
Directed by Saheem Ali
Choreographed by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck.
Scenery by Arnulfo Maldonado, costumes by Dede Ayite, lighting by Tyler Micoleau, sound by Jonathan Deans, wigs, hair & make-up by J. Jared Janas, and casting by The TRC Company. Arabella Powell serves as the Production Stage Manager.
Musicians: Marco Paguia (Piano, Music Director), David Oquendo (Guitar), Gustavo Schartz (Bass), Hery Paz (Woodwinds), Eddie Venegas (Trombone), Jesus Ricardo (Trumpet), Javier Díaz (Percussion), Mauricio Herrera (Percussion), and Román Diaz (Percussion).
Creative consultation by David Yazbek, music supervision by Dean Sharenow, orchestrations, arrangements and music direction by Marco Paguia, additional arrangements by Javier Diaz and David Oquendo, music consultation by Juan de Marcos.
Cast: Natalie Venetia Belcon (Omara), Julio Monge (Compay), Mel Semé (Ibrahim) Jainardo Batista Sterling (Rubén), Isa Antonetti (Young Omara), Da’von T. Moody (Young Compay), Wesley Wray (Young Ibrahim), Leonardo Reyna (Young Rubén), Renesito Avich (Eliades), Ashley De La Rosa (Young Haydee), Justin Cunningham (Juan de Marcos), Angélica Beliard, Carlos Falú, Carlos Gonzalez, Héctor Juan Maisonet, Ilda Mason, Marielys Molina, Andrew Montgomery Coleman, Sophia Ramos, Anthony Santos, Martín Sola, and Tanairi Sade Vazquez.
