“They have made opera sick,” says Cristina Ortega, soprano who dreamed of being Cyd Charisse

Marveled by American cinema and musicals of the mid-20th century, Cristina Ortega decided to become a dancer. I dreamed of emulating Cyd Charisse, one of the most famous dancers and actresses in that industry in those years. In particular, he was drawn to ballet.

This is how he began his studies at the National Dance School and the Andrés Soler academy. Who would have told him that destiny, but above all love – like so many others – had another path in store for him. Well, that and a leg injury. “My knee was dislocated, from which I have never been the same,” he says without bitterness.

It was the dawn of the second half of the last century and that young girl fell in love with a high school classmate with a “beautiful voice.” Faithful to that gift, he decided to become a singer and entered the National Conservatory.

Cristina always accompanied him to classes, until one day the singer Ángel R. Esquivel – one of the most distinguished Mexican teachers of the specialty – asked her if she knew how to sing and asked her to do it. “I didn’t have a voice, the teacher made it for me,” he admits. For eight years, he remembers, Esquivel molded his technique and trained him musically, alongside the great mezzo-soprano Fanny Anitúa.

Such an episode was the turning point in her life: the germ of her career as an opera singer, in which she has established herself as one of the most outstanding sopranos in Mexico in more than 60 years of professional activity.

“I started singing in 1964. Has it been worth it? Of course! It’s the same as if I danced Swan Lake and that the theater collapsed in applause for the solos, nothing more than the singing touched me.”

The teacher receives The Day in his spacious and bright apartment in Polanco. His expressive eyes do not stop smiling during more than an hour of conversation. The emotion for the tribute that the National Sound Library will pay him this March 5 is undeniable.

The singers María Luisa Tamez and Héctor Sosa will participate in this event, as well as Miguel Salinas and the honoree. The appointment is at 7 p.m. at Francisco Sosa 383, Santa Catarina neighborhood, Coyoacán. Free entry.

“I want to thank that institution, the pride of Mexico, which guards the history of the country’s lyrical art so that it is not lost in nothingness, for granting me its headquarters to celebrate what I have been able to contribute to the music of Mexico. It has been a source of pride for me and I thank life for being able to have done something that can be verified and that can attest to the great love and the great reason that life has given me.”

Vital and cheerful, there is no mention that in September the soprano suffered a stroke. The consequences are barely noticeable: a slight lack of mobility in his right leg. In more organic terms, she says that the loss of her vocal range has forced her to stop singing, for now.

Still, thank God that he is still alive. His current priority, he admits, is to leave everything in order for his children, and have the opportunity to continue sharing his teachings with youth.

Sowing in someone else’s land

As a Fine Arts concert artist, in 1989 Cristina Ortega settled in San Antonio, Texas. With the support of the consul, he took his art to universities and schools, in addition to undertaking cultural and social initiatives.

“I had a beautiful experience. The community wanted its roots, its music,” he says and specifies that he undertook projects with artists from Spain, Mexico, Peru, Colombia and the Caribbean.

He also rescued the tradition of the inns: they made them on the river, “it was a disaster.” She took them to a closed space. And since then, every year that experience is repeated. “I feel happy to have left a little seed.”

In 2014, on the occasion of her 50-year career, the soprano temporarily returned to Mexico to receive a tribute at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. “Many said that I had already died,” she recalls, “but there was no room for people in the theater, they were fighting to get in. I felt excited to be there again after so much absence.”

His final return to the country was in 2020, due to “the virus.” He prefers not to call it covid, because “it is a way of invoking it.” After 30 years abroad, he found “a completely different country.”

From the perspective of her long career, Cristina Ortega observes the current direction of opera with concern. “Now they try to do it however they want, as it occurs to them, because they don’t understand it. The worst thing is that they do it in the world, and always with a sense in which everything must have something sexual. They have made opera sick. You have to go see it as it is.”

He considers that, with the desire to innovate, the essence of the genre is not respected. “It’s a desecration. If you really like opera, you like it as it is; if not, we leave it alone. But we do it because it has to exist, because it is history, and it cannot be erased.”

Bid like Bad Bunny

One of their main disagreements is that the montages decontextualize the history and essence of the titles. He emphasizes that the main attraction of opera is the music and the voices – “we want to hear good singers and good music” – and ensures that what the public wants to hear and see is what each title offers in an original way.

“It’s like going to Notre Dame, the pyramids of Egypt or any of the great temples of antiquity and finding scantily clad dancers doing those choreographies that are all so the same and ribald. Why should we allow that? Everything has its place, its time, and we are going to respect it, know it and enjoy its purity, for what it is.”

For her, the voice is an unlimited instrument: “it allows us to do wonderful things, although many believe that we have to do what Mr. Rabbit from Puerto Rico -he says in reference to Bad Bunny-, which is nothing more than pushing in the bathroom. It can’t be, right?”

Among the memorable productions and roles she has starred in, Cristina Ortega has a special affection for La Traviata, Manon and Lucia di Lammermoor, the latter being her favorite.

The teacher remembers that the beginning of her career was as a soloist of the Orquesta Típica of Mexico City, under the guidance of Ignacio Fernández Esperón, Tata Nacho, with whom he had the fortune of performing fine Mexican and popular songs.

He does not make “the ugly” to the popular repertoire at all; He even recognizes the importance of Miguel Aceves Mejía in his decision to dedicate himself to singing. “To this day I love and surprise their falsettos; I wanted to do the same.”

–Do you consider yourself a diva?

–Now any impertinent person can be called a diva, because the term has been trivialized and they call everything a diva. Being one is not a matter of attitude, whims or empty fame; Demonstrated artistic excellence is required. The authentic diva is one who is defined by her proven, accomplished and proven achievements, by completing very difficult works to perfection and reaching a maximum level in her art. The applause at that supreme moment is something that cannot be changed for anything.