Voice Recording of Frida Kahlo Released

On June 12, the Fonoteca Nacional de México [National Sound Library of Mexico] announced the discovery of what may be the only recording known until now of Frida Kahlo's voice. Recorded in 1953 or 1954, the audio tape is part of a collection of audios by radio announcer Álvaro Gálvez y Fuentes, better known as "El Bachiller," loaned to the institution by Televisa Radio. Pável Granados, director of the Fonoteca, explained how he came to learn of the existence of the tape recording: "I visited Huamantla, Tlaxcala, and there I met Manuel de la Vega, former announcer at W Radio. I reminded him that twenty years ago he told me about a voice recording of Diego Rivera singing. He then said to me that he had the entire program and that even Frida appeared in it." And then Granados added, "Frida's voice has remained a great mystery and a recording of her voice has been sought after since the beginning of the Fonoteca." The tape recording in question is a pilot that "El Bachiller" produced and gave to XEW in 1955. A sound profile of Diego Rivera, the program included the participation of personalities of the time who were asked to give their opinion about the Mexican muralist. The clip opens with a guitar arrangement followed by the voice of a woman, believed to be Kahlo's, and then of Doctor Atl (painter Gerardo Murillo) and writer Lupe Marín. The voice attributed to Kahlo reads a text that she wrote in 1949, titled "Portrait of Diego," to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rivera's artistic career. Granados explained that the decision to release the recording was based on "a degree of certainty that the voice is Frida's," stemming from the fact that at the end of the narration "El Bachiller" states that the person is indeed Frida; because research of the audio found that "at a certain point it changes, which means that it was recorded with different equipment, in another place. In other words, the voices of Rivera, Doctor Atl, Lupe Marín, and Kahlo were not recorded in the studio or with professional equipment." Additionally, the audio was played for three persons who knew Frida in person. Lupe Rivera, daughter of the muralist, agreed that it was Kahlo's voice. Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky's grandson, doubted its authenticity, explaining that it was because of the intonation: "I never heard Frida speaking in that manner. But she was reading a text and was not her usual self." Painter Arturo Estrada Hernández said that "the voice was too mellow to be Frida's." They do not believe that the voice belongs to a professional female radio announcer or to any other person with whom Gálvez y Fuentes worked during his career, given that "it sounds flat, tired, the breathing is too pronounced, the sentences are not completed before the person has to breathe again to finish them, and the person speaks with a lisp." Granados said that the investigation will continue to corroborate that it is indeed Frida Kahlo's voice. He also pointed out that they are looking for more audios of "El Bachiller" with recordings by Kahlo to determine if the voice is authentic. Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/antena-radio-imer/frida_kahlo_voz