Profiles
Sonsoles Espinosa
By h.b. - Mar 13, 2008 - 8:43 AM
email this article |
Sonsoles Espinosa is rarely seen on official trips or functions with her husband, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the recently re-elected Socialist Prime Minister of Spain. She has preferred to keep in the background, and was only seen more during the electoral campaign for the 2008 national poll. She was with him when he placed his vote at a polling station in Madrid on 9th March, and she was at his side later that evening outside PSOE headquarters at Ferraz when the party celebrated their victory at the polls, her husband’s second victory as the Socialist candidate for Prime Minister.
Sonsoles Espinosa is seen as an elegant woman, who, however, decided to turn to Elena Benarroch for advice when her husband was first elected in 2004. The designer herself said in an interview that while she may make the suggestions, it is the Prime Minister’s wife who always makes the choice.
Sonsoles Espinosa was born in Ávila in 1962, the daughter of a military officer, and first met her future husband after her family moved to León, where she and Zapatero were both studying law at the University, and where they both graduated in their subject. They met in 1981, married in January 1990, and now have two daughters, Laura and Alba.
Her great passion is music. She sang in the university choir and taught music at a private school in the city until the couple moved to Madrid when Zapatero was elected General Secretary of PSOE.
She has always made it clear that she doesn’t want her husband’s political life to affect her professional career, nor does she like any special attention: she was said to have been upset when she attended a diving class at the Civil Guard swimming pool in Valdemoro in November 2004 and found when she arrived that the facilities had been closed down to all other users for reasons of security.
Sonsoles Espinosa is a classical singer who was a substitute soprano in the choir of the Teatro Real, and has later been contracted by the choir of RTVE – Radio Televisión Española. Said to be very disciplined in her profession, she turned down an invitation for the 70th birthday celebrations for King Juan Carlos I in January this year to perform in the choir at the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona in Verdi’s Aida.
She also sings with the Capilla Real de Madrid, a vocal and instrumental group which was founded in 1992 by Óscar Gershensohn, and the choir performed at a ceremony held in Madrid outside Atocha railway station on 11th March 2008. It was held in honour of the victims of the devastating bomb attacks on Madrid commuter trains exactly four years before, in memory of the 191 people who lost their lives that day, the more than 1,800 people who were injured, and of the police officer who died in the explosion in a flat in Leganés when seven of the suspected bombers blew themselves up.
The solemn ceremony was led by the King and Queen, followed by a minute’s silence, and then the choirs of the Capilla Real de Madrid and the Capilla Real de Cataluña with their rendition of Da pacem domine,’ – ‘Give peace, O Lord,’ a prayer for peace written by the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, in the same year of the bombings, and inspired by the tragic events.
One of the performers in the choirs which sang at the monument to the victims which stands outside the station was Sonsoles Espinosa.
MORE RELATED ARTICLES :
• Zapatero meets Ingrid Betancourt - Jul 14, 2008 - 6:55 AM
• Zapatero on La Sexta - The nutty Prime Minister - Nov 16, 2007 - 7:18 AM
• The Spanish Prime Minister ends his holidays in Asturias - Aug 23, 2007 - 10:16 PM
• Sonsoles Espinosa sings in Buenos Aires - Aug 5, 2007 - 9:48 PM
• Prime Minister talks up the first six months of the year in Parliament - Jul 27, 2007 - 5:51 PM