Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Haydée Alba began classical singing early with Sofía Bandín and Guillermo Parmigiani. She learned music at the same time, and in 1978, she studied acting with Adelaïda Hernandez Castagnino, among others.

Especially drawn to the popular music of her home country, she traveled extensively in Argentina in order to steep herself in traditional music and lyrics. She studied the tango with Roberto Selles, José Gobello, and Héctor Negro, and she developed her repertoire with León Benarós, Virgilio and Homero Expósito.

Haydée Alba began her career singing in many theatres in Buenos Aires. At the same time, she became well known in Argentina through the programme of traditional music which she created and presented on the national radio station.

In 1986, Paris audiences discovered Haydée Alba when she performed for three months at "Les Trottoirs de Buenos Aires."

From then on, Haydée Alba was launched on an international career throughout Europe (England, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Poland etc...), Switzerland and Canada. Among many Parisian venues, she performed at the Centre Pompidou, the Maison de l'Amérique Latine, the Théâtre Dejazet, the amphitheatre of the Bastille Opera, Théâtre Kallisté à Ajaccio, among others.

 

Her radio concerts as a soloist include:

· France Musique (2000, Salle Olivier Messian*).
· WDR German Radio* (1998)
· France Musique (1992, at the Pompidou Centre*, and on ARTE*)
· Belgian National Radio* (Radio 3) 1991
· France Culture (1990, Salle Olivier Messian*)

* recording and nationwide transmission

Invited by the director of the Opéra Nationale de Paris, Hugues Gall, she gave ten concerts at the Amphitheatre of the Bastille Opera in December 1999, accompanied by four musicians and a barrel organ.

 

Through collaborative work on the creation of other shows, Haydée Alba also had the opportunity to meet and work with artists from many horizons, such as Alfredo Arias, Marilu Marini, Rodolfo Desouza, Georges Moustaki, Elisabeth Chojnacka, Wilfride Piollet, Jean Guizerix, Jean-Pierre Bernès, and René de Céccatti, among others.

 

In 1992, Alfredo Arias cast Haydée Alba as the mother in Mortadela. It was a hit show which played for nine months in Paris and on tour (more than 400 performances) and which won the Molière award for best musical of 1993.

 

In 1995, Haydée Alba enjoyed another enormous success with her performance in the role of Marguerite in Alfredo Arias' new show, Faust Argentin (180 performances).

 

Haydée Alba has made several recordings as a soloist, and others with the shows she has performed in.

Some of the theatres in France where she has appeared include :

Théâtre du Rond-Point, salle Jean-Louis Barrault, Paris, la Comédie des Champs-Elysées, au Théâtre de la Colline, Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, Théâtre de Mogador, La Cigale, Théâtre Montparnasse,Théâtre de Nîmes, Arsénal de Metz (salle de l'Esplanade), Espace du Pin Galant (Mérignac), Théâtre municipal de Roanne, Scène Nationale de Sens, Théâtre "La Coupole", Théâtre de Suresne, Salle Nougaro (Toulouse), Scène Nationale de Fécamp, Théâtre Jean Le Bleu (Manosque), Sommet européen 1889 (Strasbourg), Café de la Danse, France Musique (Nuit du Réveillon), Festival de Montauban "Alors chante", Festival d'Argenteuil "Autour de la voix", 10ème Marché de la Poésie (Saint-Sulpice), Festival de la Loire, Centre culturel de L'Haÿ les Roses, Centre culturel de Boulogne-Billancourt (1991 - 2002), Convention bi-annuelle Mercedez-Benz, Le Bal de la Rose (organisé par Caroline de Monaco, 1996 et 1997), L'hexagone (Grenoble), La Bouche d'air, salle Paul Fort (Nantes), Musicora (1990 - 91 - 92), FIAP, Chaire Goya carrefour universitaire méditerranéen (Nice), Festival Culturamérica à Pau, Théâtre Kallisté (Ajaccio), Festival Angers l'été, Théâtre l'Atrium de Chaville (salle Robert Hossein)

 

When Haydée Alba sings, it is not only a singer of exceptional timbre and art that we hear: we literally participate in the miraculous incarnation of the emotion that music transmits. Through her, all the ghosts of Argentina come to life in Paris. The theatres where the crystaline power of her voice vibrates are the refuge of lost poets, from so far away and yet suddenly so near in our hearts. Haydée Alba is in truth a medium. Bewitched and bewitching, possessed, she possesses us… when she provokes our tears, it is without "pathos". She pronounces simply the words, she transmits their inherent music, recreating their very essence, perfect, immaculate, exact, unique.

Alfredo Arias, Paris, June 30, 1993