The bolero, poetry and love put to song in Cuba and Mexico

With a voice that delights, Cuban bolero singer Hechavarria has taken bolero around the world. Photo: AFP

As one of the greatest living exponents of romantic bolero music, 82-year-old Migdalia Hechavarria was thrilled to hear that Unesco recently recognised it as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, calling the musical form “identity, emotion and poetry turned into song”.

There was little else for Hechavarria to do except break into song.