Co-sponsored by the FIU Libraries and the Kimberly Green Latin American & Caribbean Center, Javier Soriano will present “The Critical Reconstruction of ‘La esclava’ (1921) by José Mauri Esteve: Proposal for a Cuban Opera in Three Acts.” This lecture will take place on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 12:00 noon, at Green Library (Room 220) at the FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus, located at 11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida. This event, to be held in Spanish, is free and open to the public. [To confirm your in-person attendance, please write ics@fiu.edu or call (305) 348–1991.]
Description: This study addresses the critical reconstruction of La Esclava (1921) by José Mauri Esteve as a central case for understanding the emergence of a national operatic language in Cuba and the processes of textual transmission within Cuban lyric theatre. Preserved in a fragmentary condition and dispersed across orchestral parts, piano reductions, and divergent vocal copies, the work must be examined from the perspective of the continuing archive, understood as the critical articulation of heterogeneous material testimonies.
The lecture will first present the current state of the surviving sources and the principal stages in the transmission of the work from its premiere to later twentieth-century revival attempts. Second, it will examine the methodological criteria applied in the comparison of vocal versions and partial orchestral materials, with the aim of restoring the dramatic and musical structure of the work as a Cuban opera in three acts. Particular attention will also be given to the role of archival collections associated with the Díaz-Ayala Collection and related holdings in reconstructing the documentary framework of the work. Finally, the paper will reflect on the place of La Esclava within the historiography of Cuban lyric theatre and on the implications of its reconstruction for establishing a canonical version oriented both toward scholarly research and contemporary performance practice.
Javier Soriano is a Cuban-born musicologist and cornettist. He holds degrees from the Universidad de las Artes (Cuba) and the Pôle Supérieur Aliénor de Poitiers in musicology, musicianship training, and early music performance. He currently teaches musicianship, analysis, and ensemble practice (early music) at the Conservatoire de Poitiers, and is also a lecturer at the University of Poitiers and researcher at the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Musicales (CERMUS), as well as a member of IRET at Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3.
He has been appointed member of the ARTEMIS working group of the Association Européenne des Conservatoires (AEC), dedicated to the evaluation of higher-education music programs across Europe. He is the author of Fiesta electrónica en La Habana y poder simbólico (Lomas Editorial), with a foreword by Liliana González Moreno and Grizel Hernández Baguer, and José Mauri y las músicas del olvido (CERMUS). His work has appeared in several academic journals, including Boletín Música (Casa de las Américas), New York Classical Review, and Revista Clave, among others.
He has presented lectures and taught at academic institutions and conferences in Cuba, Colombia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Ghana, and Australia. He is the recipient of a Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Research Grant, the Research Award of the Instituto Superior de Artes (Havana), and the Cubadisco Award for Best Chamber Music Recording (with the early music ensemble Ars Longa), and has been nominated for the REMA Awards (European Early Music Network) in the category of Best Extra-European Project.
For more information, see https://calendar.fiu.edu/event/the-critical-reconstruction-of-la-esclava-1921-by-jose-mauri-esteve-proposal-for-a-cuban-opera-in-three-acts-1431
Co-sponsored by the FIU Libraries and the Kimberly Green Latin American & Caribbean Center, Javier Soriano will present “The Critical Reconstruction of ‘La esclava’ (1921) by José Mauri Esteve: Proposal for a Cuban Opera in Three Acts.” This lecture will take place on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 12:00 noon, at Green Library (Room 220) at the
