1. Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda, known as Rita Montaner, was a Cuban singer, pianist and actress.
28 Facts About Rita Montaner
1. 2.
Rita Montaner was one of Cuba's most popular artists between the late 1920s and 1950s, renowned as Rita de Cuba.
3.
Rita Montaner was born on 20 August 1900 in Guanabacoa, Havana, into a middle-class family.
4.
Rita Montaner's father, Domingo Montaner Pulgaron, was a pharmacist and her mother was Mercedes Facenda; she herself was short in stature, good-looking with a fine smile, and intelligent.
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Rita Montaner learned English, Italian and French at religious school, and at 10 attended the Peyrellade Conservatory in Havana.
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In 1917, Rita Montaner played Mendelssohn in her final examination at the Peyrellade Conservatory in Havana; she graduated in piano, song and harmony with a gold medal.
7.
Rita Montaner persuaded her husband to let her appear and sing.
8.
Rita Montaner sang duos with Eusebio Delfin, and as a solo, pieces by Alberto Villalon, Ernesto Lecuona, Sanchez de Fuentes and others.
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Rita Montaner sang a duet from La Gioconda by Ponchielli with Lola de la Torre, a soprano, and sang solo on other pieces.
10.
Rita Montaner performed with maestros such as Lecuona, Jorge Anckermann, Delfin, Sanchez de Fuentes and Gonzalo Roig and was successful and respectable, as befitted a middle-class married woman of those times.
11.
Rita Montaner performed in popular, but slightly "vulgar" theater ; traveled to other countries and became a recording artist.
12.
Rita Montaner made her debut in the Schubert Follies together with Xavier Cugat at the Apollo Theater.
13.
The second one-act work on the same program was the premiere of Lecuona's La tierra de Venus, where Rita Montaner sang "Siboney", which is still a Latin standard.
14.
Rita Montaner went to Paris for the first time, performing at the Olympia and Le Palace theaters.
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In 1929, Rita Montaner traveled to Madrid and Valencia, then to Paris, returning to Cuba in 1930.
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When she was in Cuba, Rita Montaner had a regular engagement at the Eden Concert, a nightclub right in the center of Havana.
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Rita Montaner put him on the bill under his nickname, without consulting him.
18.
Rita Montaner was born in Cardenas, Cuba, but had been deported to Mexico.
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Rita Montaner next organized a smaller company with Pedro Vargas, whom she injudiciously paid in advance.
20.
Rita Montaner, furious, left the company, and Bola found himself looking at a third-class ticket to Mexico City.
21.
The arrival of sound in films had created new opportunities for musicians, and Rita Montaner launched on a new career as a film performer.
22.
La Rita Montaner was to make good use of both these opportunities.
23.
Rita Montaner divorced Ernesto Estevez in 1938, and married in 1939, for the third time, to the advocate Dr Javier Calderon Poveda.
24.
Rita Montaner intervened to save him from the leprosarium, supported his family and gave him accommodation in her house.
25.
Rita Montaner helped Chano Pozo before his career took off, getting him a job at the radio company RHC-Cadena Azul as a door-man and bodyguard.
26.
In 1946, Rita Montaner signed with the Tropicana, with Bola de Nieve as accompanist, to take part in the midnight spectacular.
27.
Rita Montaner reigned there as the number one figure for nearly four years: the longest-running contract of her career.
28.
Rita Montaner continued to do theater work whenever her radio show was off the air.