Discover the musicians of 'Buena Vista Social Club' on Broadway
Lost to history for decades, the artists of the titular Cuban music group were rediscovered in the '90s, and the stage musical's cast brings them to life anew.
The 1997 album Buena Vista Social Club propelled a renaissance of classic Cuban music onto the world stage. The Buena Vista Social Club ensemble, named for a once-popular Havana club, comprised musicians who had reached the peak of their careers decades earlier, during the heyday of Latin genres like son, bolero, and danzon.
The story of this group's formation is the subject of the new Broadway musical Buena Vista Social Club, featuring BVSC's Grammy Award-winning music and a book by Marco Ramirez that jumps between the '90s and the artists' young adulthood in the '50s. This is no standard bio-musical, however. The characters share names with the iconic BVSC musicians, but Ramirez's script invents new backstories that imagine what their lifelong relationships to the music, and to each other, could have been.
Even so, the Buena Vista Social Club musical is doing the same thing the album did 30 years ago: introducing a new wave of global audiences to these artists' extraordinary talents.
"This means absolutely everything to me, letting people get to know who they are all over again, because it was a comeback story back in the '90s," said Natalie Venetia Belcon, who stars in the show as singer Omara Portuondo. "Now we're telling their comeback story and a lot of people are like, 'Wait, what? I've never heard of these people!'"
Below, get to know the main characters in Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway and discover where fact and fiction diverge. The closest you'll get to seeing these real-life icons perform is getting tickets to the musical, so don't miss it!
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Omara Portuondo
Played by: Natalie Venetia Belcon (as Omara), Isa Antonetti (as Young Omara)
Omara Portuondo was a vocalist on the Buena Vista album and is one of the only members of the band still living. Portuondo even attended the musical's opening night, and Belcon, described meeting her as "brief" but "amazing."
Portuondo only sings one of the album's songs — a lost-love lament titled "Veinte años," as a duet with Ibrahim Ferrer — but Ramirez made her the central character in the stage show. Belcon embodies "the basics" of the dignified Portuondo, she said, like "the way she holds herself, the tone and quality of her voice."
Otherwise, "as far as the real Omara is concerned, [her character] is a fable," the actress continued. "We made her up."
In the musical, Portuondo is "going through it," Belcon wryly added. She's processing "memories and repressed emotions" years after retiring from a successful solo career — something many of her fellow musicians failed to achieve amid the tumult of the Cuban Revolution in the '50s. Convincing Portuondo to do one more recording is the key to Buena Vista Social Club's success.
Though largely fictionalized, this story honors Portuondo's importance to Cuban music history. "She is a strong, iconic, legendary woman, and she is someone I look up to so much," said Antonetti. "She has this breath of fresh air, she's so calm and so grounded, and I want to take that with me everywhere I go."
Compay Segundo
Played by: Julio Monge (as Compay), Da’von Moody (as Young Compay)
Monge puts it best: "Compay was the king." He truly did it all: Compay Segundo was a vocalist, guitarist, and drummer for Buena Vista Social Club. Before that, he was one half of Los Compadres, one of the most successful Cuban duos of the 1950s, but he faded into obscurity until joining BVSC.
Segundo composed the album's famous, upbeat opening number, "Chan Chan," as well as songs in Latin genres like son, bolero, danzon, and even waltz.
"Compay was the person he called when they made this album because he's the one with the knowledge," Monge said. "His music-making goes back to World War I, and his story and his history and his collaboration and his contribution to Cuban music is extraordinary.
"He's not only a great Cuban musician; he's a great world-class musician."
Ibrahim Ferrer
Played by: Mel Semé (as Ibrahim), Wesley Wray (as Young Ibrahim)
Ibrahim Ferrer only appears on stage a few times in Buena Vista Social Club, but each time is deeply poignant, showing his strength and resilience, according to Wray.
"He grew up poor and was by himself by 12 years old," the actor said of Ferrer's character in the musical. "He was working on the Malecón, on the boardwalk, singing to people for money and then going to work as a busboy at the Buenavista Social Club, singing and working tables."
"He was this incredible artist, and then [due to] some events that happened in Cuba, he suddenly is busking, he's shining shoes, he's completely out of the scene," echoed Semé. The real Ferrer spent decades as a member of the Cuban group Los Bocucos and other ensembles, but he was never widely known outside the country until recording Buena Vista Social Club.
The Afro-Cuban Ferrer also has a particularly meaningful relationship with Portuondo in the musical. "In this story, he's the first person to show Omara the Black Cuban culture and where she comes from," Wray said. "[During] 'Bruca Manigua,' which is the song I sing in the first act, she's really by taken aback by all the history."
The stage show sees Ferrer experience colorism that made it especially difficult for him to succeed, especially when the Revolution erupted. Buena Vista Social Club gives the character "the opportunity to come back to the light" 40 years later, Semé said.
"It's very beautiful, the way the story about Ibrahim is told, because you can see him shine when he's young, and then you can see the darkness," he continued. "You can see the poetry of his character, and then you can see him shine back."
Eliades Ochoa
Played by: Renesito Avich
A vocalist and guitarist on the Buena Vista album, Eliades Ochoa is another of the group's still-living members. He began playing guitar at 6 years old and has appeared on nearly 50 albums throughout his life.
Ochoa is young, excitable, and eager to impress Portuondo in the musical. He has a minor speaking role, but he is a key player in the onstage band and sings multiple songs alongside his co-stars.
Rubén González
Played by: Jainardo Batista Sterling (as Rubén), Leonardo Reyna (as Young Rubén)
Called the "genius of Cuban piano" and "Picasso on the keys," Rubén González was a virtuoso pianist featured on seven songs on the Buena Vista album. It's a little different than in the show: "You're not necessarily going to see my character playing the piano like he used to," Batista Sterling said. "He's not 100% here."
González struggled with renal, respiratory, and mobility issues for years until his death in 2003. In the musical, these troubles cloud his awareness and largely prevent him from speaking, let alone playing. But we get to see Reyna, as a young González, show off his piano prowess, and one touching moment sees the older González back at the instrument once more. The best music, González's character shows, sticks in the memory and in the bones for life.
Juan de Marcos González
Played by: Justin Cunningham
Besides the musicians, multiple people worked behind the scenes to pull the Buena Vista album together, including music executive Nick Gold; producer Ry Cooder, who was also a guitarist on the album; and director/bandleader Juan de Marcos González, who was already locating musicians for an Afro-Cuban All Stars band and ended up putting many of them, like Ibrahim Ferrer and Rubén González, in BVSC as well.
He's also the only one of these people who appears in the Broadway musical. The young, scrappy character of Juan de Marcos is not afraid to take risks to succeed: When we meet him in the first scene, he's shown up unannounced to Portuondo's house to convince her to come aboard!
Still living and working, the real González attended rehearsals for the musical to provide guidance, according to Cunningham.
Haydee Portuondo
Played by: Ashley De La Rosa
We only meet Haydee as an ambitious, exacting young woman in the Buena Vista Social Club musical, as she was not a part of the titular music group. In the '40s and '50s, she and Omara Portuondo, her sister, sang in Havana clubs together, and we get glimpses into their rehearsals and performances.
In real life, the sisters joined other music groups and even toured the U.S., but in the show, Haydee only performs with Omara in Cuba. Their relationship strains due to their differing visions of where they want their music careers to go — and whether they should pursue them within or outside the country.
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Photo credit: Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy)
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