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A
legend in the Cuban cultural world and president of the
Cuban Friendship Institute (ICAP), Sergio Corrieri, died in
Havana Friday at the age of 69. His ashes will be on display
Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the funeral parlor
at Calzada and K in the Vedado District. velar
PEDRO DE LA HOZ
A
modest man by virtue, totally committed to the fate of his
country, a defender of socialist values and loyal to the
historic leadership of the revolution, Corrieri never
stopped working for his convictions and always gave his best
to the tasks asked of him.
Born in
Havana on March 2, 1938, Corrieri leaves behind a legacy in
the performing arts. Tomorrow he would have turned 70.
Attracted to acting, he enrolled at the University Theater
and debuted at sixteen in the play El nieto de Dios,
by Joracy Camargo of Brazil.
Corrieri was a founder of the Teatro Estudio group
along with Raquel and Vicente Revuelta and was on stage
during the premiere performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Long
Day's Journey into Night.
In his
stage career, he played many diverse roles in plays by
Miller, Chejov, Lope de Vega, Albee, Brecht, Schnitlzler,
Dragun and Maiakovski. And on the road to becoming a
director he showed extraordinary talent in the staging of
the 1964 world premiere of the play Contigo pan y cebolla,
the popular comedy written by Hector Quintero.
But by
then Sergio wasn’t only a man of the theater. "The
revolution had changed our lives —he said in an interview—
and opened new perspectives for Cuban culture. We understood
that art had to be made with and for the revolution; art
with sound values, performed while at the same time being a
citizen and soldier."
These
interests led him to found the Escambray Theater Group in
1968, along with his mother Gilda Hernandez, a popular
actress of her time. "We weren’t interested in repertory
because the plays were all very beautiful. We weren’t trying
to impose culture. We wanted to reach out to the people with
points of view to help them understand their reality and be
capable of transforming it."
This
gesture was unprecedented for someone considered one of the
best actors in the country and having under his belt the
brilliant and convincing lead role in the film Memories
of Underdevelopment, a classic of Cuban cinema by Tomas
Gutierrez Alea.
His
work heading the Escambray Theater Group, in an area
undergoing dynamic socioeconomic transformations, only a few
years after the counterrevolution tried to plant roots
there, revealed in Sergio not only the maturity of his
esthetic concepts but his leadership qualities as a
revolutionary.
While
he directed and acted in memorable plays such as Ramona,
El juicio, and Los novios, he was also identified by
moviegoers for his role as hero Alberto Delgado in El
Hombre de Maisinicu by Manolo Perez. Corrieri also moved
Cubans across the island with his role of Fernando/David in
the TV series En silencio ha tenido que ser, and grew
politically at the helm of his Escambray collective and
among the residents of the area.
As such
he was elected as a delegate to the First Congress of the
Communist Party, and a member of the Central Committee
beginning in 1980. He was elected as a member of the first
legislature of the Cuban parliament in 1976, a seat he held
for successive legislatures. During the fifth legislature,
he was elected a member of the Council of State.
From
the Escambray Mountains he and his theater troupe left for
Angola to share their art with the Cuban internationalists
in the midst of an offensive of pro-imperialist forces. Days
after the 1979 triumph of the Sandinista revolution in
Nicaragua, he arrived to the Central American country.
In
1985, he was named vice president of the Cuban Radio and
Television Institute (ICRT). In 1987, he became the head of
the Cultural Office of the Communist Party Central Committee
and since 1990, had been the president of the Cuban
Friendship Institute (ICAC).
Since
he took that post, amid the difficult times following the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the Socialist Bloc and of
ideological wavering on the left, Corrieri carried out an
intense effort as spokesperson for the international
solidarity movement with the Cuban revolution and
contributed to spreading the word about the resistance and
humanistic ideas of Cuban society.
Among
his most tireless efforts of recent years has been getting
the truth out on the case of the Cuban Five, unjustly
imprisoned in the US for having worked to prevent terrorist
acts against their country, and reciprocating solidarity
from important sectors of the US to Cuba.
Aware
of his fragile health, he accepted to head the organizing
committee for the Seventh Conference of the Association of
Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), an effort highly
appreciated by artists and intellectuals who always saw him
as an example.
Corrieri held several awards for his meritorious
achievements including the Felix Varela Order, the Alejo
Carpentier Medal, the Replica of the Machete of General
Maximo Gomez issued by the Ministry of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces and the 2006 National Theater Award.
Only
recently, at the opening of an exposition by artists Jose
Omar Torres and Diana Balboa at the La Acacia Gallery, I
asked him if he missed acting. "At times I feel nostalgic,
but at those moments other efforts make me feel useful and
fulfilled. If I had another life I wouldn’t hesitate to live
this same one again trying to be even better."
Granma 01-03-2008 |
