On September 29, 1927, Cuban soprano Rita Montaner walked onto the stage of Havana's Teatro Regina. The cross-dressed actress sang the premiere of Eliseo Grenet's tango-congo, "Ay Mam? In?s" and cemented the song as a classic in the Cuban repertoire. More importantly, her performance heralded the birth of the Cuban zarzuela, a Spanish-language light opera with spoken dialogue that originated in Spain but transformed popular entertainment in Cuba...