MIAMI, United States. – The Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso (GTH), headquarters of the Cuban National Balletis closed due to the termite that affects both the carpentry of the ceiling and the wooden accessories of the García Lorca room, said to cubadebate Emmanuel George, deputy director of the GTH.
“The main difficulties that the theater has is due to termites in the carpentry and in the wooden accessories in the García Lorca room. The false ceiling is affected, which is the critical path of the installation. Behind that structure there is a slab that has landslides,” the official explained.
According to the experts referred to by cubadebate, the false ceiling of the installation cannot be repaired without previous work on the slab. “Between it and the false ceiling there are about 30 or 40 centimeters, which is why it is impossible to reach it from the outside and it must be dismantled. This implies a delicate process because there are artistic elements, plaster moldings and a specific canvas that must be preserved. In the case of paintings, you have to get replicas or a digital memory of what they are like to preserve their heritage value,” George explained.
On the other hand, the manager specified that the small table in the García Lorca room has no problems. “There are termites on other levels, but the roof is what compromises the start of the performances,” he insisted.
Lillitsy Hernández Oliva, president of the National Council of Performing Arts (CNAE), told cubadebate that the competent authorities signed a contract with the Agroforestry Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture to identify the termite species that affect the cultural institution and combat them.
“Liquids were imported through BOX because many of those chemicals do not exist in Cuba,” he said.
According to the CNAE president, the manner in which the termite arrived at the Gran Teatro de La Habana has not been determined. “It is an invasive insect, and wood has a limited useful life in that sense. It is prone to happen, especially in a place where different types and accessories of this material come together. A single contaminated piece of wood is capable of compromising the rest,” she said.
As if that were not enough, the infrastructure, especially on the third floor, began to suffer fragmentation and part of the roof has deteriorated due to leaks in the air conditioning system. “The detachments in the slab may be due to humidity or sound vibrations typical of theaters,” the official inferred.
“Any of the solutions that experts and engineers suggest is expensive and will be carried out in 2023, the year in which there will be greater capacity from the amount of investment that is being secured to continue recovering the theater,” said Hernández Oliva.
With a neo-Baroque style, the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso, located in the old Tacón Theater, underwent major repairs between 2013 and 2015 and opened its doors in 2016.
In this investment process, the facades, lobbies, boxes, roofs and little tables were restored; The theater was equipped with new furniture, curtains, an air conditioning system, acoustics, stage mechanics, rehearsal rooms for the dancers and the orchestra, a recording studio and more than 20 dressing rooms. The current problems are not related to that restoration, he assured cubadebate.
