Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
I love the fact that in Dumaguete, I can tell myself: “I want to end this busy week by watching opera.” And watch I did, straight from my last class of the day.
In the photo, that’s Rodolfo and Mimi in this barebones production of Puccini’s La Boheme at Silliman University’s Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium, presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and featuring the performers from Viva Voce Voice Lab. The entire opera was staged, but it was not a full-fledged production — there was no orchestra [only a piano] and there were no elaborate costumes — but all there was were performance, gusto, and the beauty of the human voice. Often, that’s enough.
The show was packaged as an educational outreach program, to teach contemporary Filipino audiences about what opera is all about, and to make a traditionally daunting art form be accessible to those who have only heard about what opera is like and are too intimidated to watch any. Hence, the helpful introduction by artistic director Camille Lopez Molina before the show began [she was very funny]. Hence, the simplicity of the staging. Hence, the supertitles projected on screen that directly translated the Italian lyrics the performers were singing.
Truth to tell, this was my first opera, and although it was done in this format, I was grateful for what it was — because everyone in the audience truly enjoyed the musical spectacle onstage: an audience of mostly students awww’d at the lighting quick romance between the two leads, arrrgh’d at the seeming red-flagness of Rodolfo when he wanted to break up with Mimi, and ohhhh’d at Mimi’s final demise.
[Molina also explained that the company specifically sought out a performance at the Luce because this was Viva Voce’s experiment with raw voice projection, no amplification, in a suitable theater: the Luce remains the only theater in the country with the best acoustics.]
I can readily tell when a Luce audience is appreciative [and Dumaguete is notoriously hard to please], and tonight was one for the books.
At the end, I also realized that this show signaled the end of the pandemic for me. At least culturally speaking. The last show I watched at the Luce before lockdown started in 2020 was Rent, the Jonathan Larson musical that borrows heavily from La Boheme. Four year later, I am watching the OG material on the same stage. My pandemic has been properly bookended.
P.S. It’s now funny to me that when I listened to opera before, the Italian lyrics and the melodic voice made me think they were singing of very important pronouncements. Now I know that they’re just singing of the most mundane things, like: “I left a pink bonnet underneath your pillow. Please pack it for me.”
11:47 AM |
Cherie Gil Brings Maria Callas to the Luce Stage in Master Class
The Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee and the Philippine Opera Company, in cooperation with Globe and Midtown Printing Company, are proud to present the Tony Award-winning play, Master Class, about the legendary opera diva Maria Callas. It will have its Visayan premiere and Dumaguete run on 20 and 21 August 2010, Friday and Saturday, at 8 P.M., Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium in Silliman University.
Terrence McNally’s play was first produced by the Philadelphia Theatre Company in March 1995; it opened at the Golden Theatre in New York City in November of the same year. The play is based on a series of master classes given by the renowned opera singer Maria Callas at the Juilliard School of Music in New York in 1971 and 1972. Callas (1923–77), was the greatest dramatic soprano of her generation and also a controversial figure. Her restless and tempestuous personality often led her into disputes with opera managements and feuds with rival singers. However, she was adored by her fans and was the subject of constant media attention, including gossip about her jet-set life with the wealthy Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis.
Although Master Class does delve into the triumphs and tragedies of Callas’s life, its primary focus is the art of dramatic singing. As McNally’s fictional version of Callas teaches her class, she explains to her students, two sopranos and a tenor, just what it takes to invest the music with real feeling, revealing as she does so how demanding the profession of opera singing is. She also reveals her own contradictory personality—proud and egotistical yet also vulnerable and self-pitying. In spite of all the flaws of its main character, however, Master Class, written by a man who has been a Callas fan since he was a teenager in high school, is a tribute to the dedication of a great singer and actress to her chosen art.
Although the play touches on many of the main events of Maria Callas’ life, it is not in essence a biographical portrait. Rather, it is an exploration of the nature of artistic creation, as applied to operatic singing and acting. Maria makes clear that art is serious business that cannot be done by half measures; it demands total commitment on the part of the singer/actress. Being an opera singer can never be an easy career; the singer must give everything to the demands of her craft. This means intense discipline over a lifetime.
Witness one of Philippine cinema’s living legends Cherie Gil in a very rare performance as the opera icon Maria Callas.
Playing the students in her master class are Juan Alberto Gaerlan as Anthony Candolino, Florence Aguilar as Sophie de Palma, Ana Feleo as Sharon Graham, Francis Amora as the pianist Manny.
Juan Alberto Gaerlan completed his Professional Diploma Studies in Western Opera at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts where he graduated with distinction. He has made numerous performances here and abroad and was last seen as Rodolfo in POC’s and CCP’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme.
Ana Guillen Feleo is an Aliw Awardee for Best Actress in a Musical for 2007. She received her music education at the College of Music, University of the Philippines under the tutelage of Professor Emeritus Fides Cuyugan- Asensio. She pursued further coaching with W. Stephen Smith in Juilliard last 2008 when she prepared for her biggest break in her operatic career when she played the role of Musetta in La Boheme.
Florence Aguilar graduated magna cum laude in voice from the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music. She was part of the Singapore Lyric Opera’s twin bill production of Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci and of the Philharmonic Chamber of Choir of Singapore’s Bach’s Mass in B minor and I Love My Love concerts conducted by Maestro Lim Lau and Johannes Prinz respectively.
Francis Amora is a BM graduate in Piano Performance from Philippine Women’s University Conservatory of Music and is currently taking up his Masters in Piano Performance in UST Conservatory of Muic under Prof. Raul Sunico.
The play is directed by veteran stage actor Michael Williams.
Tickets are available at P300, P500, P800, and P1000. For inquiries, please call (035) 422-6002 loc. 520 or loc. 250, or 09173235953.
Opera is a precarious thing to admire the first time around. I remember Edward, Richard Gere's character in Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman, telling Vivian (Julia Roberts) exactly this while they were watching La Traviata in a San Francisco opera house: "People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul."
Risky business it is then, the appreciation of opera. (Good thing I had dearest Francois to teach me the basics in the first place.) Which is why if there is one opera I will choose to see for my first time, it will be George Frideric Handel's Xerxes -- if only to listen to one of the greatest, most affecting arias in the history of opera: "Ombra mai fu." It's the first aria in the opera, sung by the main title character in praise of a tree and its shade. Sure, Xerxes may be what in the opera world is called a "pants role," but female singers have done more than justice to it. Listen to Marilyn Horne sing the aria, and you will swoon.
Here's the simple lyrics of the aria:
Ombra mai fu di vegetabile cara ed amabile, soave più.
Ombra mai fu di vegetabile cara ed amabile, soave più.
Cara ed amabile, ombra mai fu di vegetabile cara ed amabile, soave più. soave più.
Translated, it means:
Never was shade Of plant More dear, amiable and sweet.
10:00 PM |
La Boheme at Silliman
