The Cultural Franchise of Cecilia Valdés

• In Event: Roots and Offshoots: New Approaches to Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés

Abstract

No single narrative has had a more pervasive influence on Cuban identity formation, as well as on artistic production in Cuba, than the saga of Cecilia Valdés, which has burgeoned into a cultural franchise. Beginning with Cirilo Villaverde´s 1839 short story, and the much under-examined short novel from the same year, I will discuss these early works and their socio-political contexts in relation to the author’s magnum opus of 1882. In addition to the texts authored by Villaverde, himself, I will trace the Cecilia story and its echoes in the work of various writers, composers, and directors spanning the better part of two centuries. Examples include Martín Morúa Delgado´s 1891 novel, Sofía, as well as the 1932 operetta, which has been produced in at least eight theatrical versions, has been set as a ballet, and was adapted into a seven-hour television mini-series. Humberto Solás’ ambitious film adaptation was released in 1982, and five years later Reinaldo Arenas published his reworking of Villaverde’s novel as La loma del Angel, leading a new generation of critics to reassess the multiple permutations of this resilient work. In 1998, Parece Blanca, a modernized, theatrical setting of the story, was debuted in New York by Cuban playwright and director Abelardo Estorino, and references to the Cecilia narrative appear in Daína Chaviano’s 2006 novel, La isla de los amores infinitos. I will analyze both the persistence and the malleability of the story´s thematic and ideological features over time.

Author

• Lucy D Harney, Texas State University