Keeping 'La Traviata Exposed' real

Music and stage director Camille Lopez Molina

After a lull of three years, the Verdi opera La Traviata returns onstage on Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ayala Museum in Makati City. The reason? "Basically because the right voices for it are there," said Camille Lopez Molina, music and stage director.

The story of Violetta, a courtesan, her ardent suitor Alfredo and his interfering father Giorgio may be a tale as old as time, but it has something to say in the 21st century with the rising incidence of HIV AIDS. The subject of a prostitute with a heart of gold may no longer be "as touchy as it was in Verdi’s time," Lopez Molina observed, "but certainly the issues that made it a sensitive subject still exist: prostitution, class discrimination, sexism."

Anna Migallos as Violetta

Nomher Nival as Alfredo

Asked how she tweaked the opera, which features soprano Anna Migallos, tenor Nomher Nival and bass baritone Noel Azcona with the Viva Voce Ensemble, and why the word "exposed" was added to the title, she answerd, "La Traviata Exposed is just refocusing attention from production aspects--costumes, sets, orchestra, personalities--back to the opera itself (music, text, voices). It serves a two-way purpose which resonates deeply with me. One, to give the singers, a chance to vocally, musically and emotionally connect with the opera--keep it real, so to speak--and two, by doing so, help the audience gain a deeper connection, a more truly ‘up close and personal’ experience of opera itself, not the spectacle of it. Give them a reason to want more of the music, not just the show. Granted, it is a theatrical art form, but the ‘theater’ aspect of it stems directly from the music and the text. Just because we don’t have a full production doesn’t mean we can’t have the full emotional experience of the opera."

For tickets, call Ticketworld at 891-9999 or the Cultural Arts Events Organizer at tel. nos. 782-7164, 0918-3473027 and 0920-9540053. Tickets at Php 1,000, Php 700 (for senior citizens), Php 500 and Php 300 (for students).

Photos from the Facebook accounts of Lopez Molina, Migallos and Nival

Three sopranos who’re lovely in and out

The three women are the featured artists in the concert “Divas: The Beauty of the Soprano Voice” on April 9 at 7:30 p.m., at Ayala Museum in Makati City.
They go by the old definition of “diva,” which Wikipedia states as “a celebrated female singer; a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera and by extension, in theater, cinema and popular music.”

Read more: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/226068/three-sopranos-whore-lovely-in-and-out#ixzz44tcZWhHm
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Anna Migallos

Renee Michaela Fajardo

Myramae Tapia Meneses

Pure, unplugged

Prof. Arturo Molina leading the 90-year-old Manila Symphony Orchestra, the oldest in the country and in Asia

The new performing arts venue at the Circuit Makati (formerly the Sta. Ana racetrack) allows for instrumentalists and vocalists to perform without anything to enhance the sound. "Pure, unplugged" was how Jeffrey Solares, executive director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO), described the sound when the MSO played its final run-through this Saturday before the concert "Love in the Time of Opera" started.

Billed as a pre-Valentine concert, the event came to be within less than a month when an MSO concert was postponed and something had to replace it since some musicians are full-time salaried people and had to be involved in something. Solares sounded out Camille Lopez Molina, artistic director and vocal coach of Viva Voce, because he believed that an opera-based concert was the easiest to sell.

She was game, and the team-up with the orchestra was set in place. It was also an opportunity to help raise funds for the travel and living expenses of the two Viva Voce members, sopranos Myramae Meneses and Renee Michaela Fajardo, when they fly to London in August as scholars of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. (Incidentally, MSO bassoonist Ariel Perez is a Guildhall alumnus and full scholar, too.)

Also in Viva Voce's favor was the availability of tenor Arthur Espiritu and baritone Noel Azcona. The same went for stage actors Nonie Buencamino and Teenee Chan who waived their fees and gave their all for love of music. The universe was conspiring for this show to succeed.

The audience was treated to steamy love duets, all the more amazing because the singers-actors could twist and turn their bodies while not losing a beat, not affecting their voices' volume. There were physically unusual pairings like the one between the towering hulk of a tenor in Mark Bautista and the sweet and petite Iona Ventocilla, who has the role of Mimi down pat, in the timeless "O Soave Fanciulla" from La Boheme. But then opera is where suspension of belief is called for. The role of tubercular Mimi is more often than not sung by a robust soprano.

As Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, Lopez Molina had the build and dignity of age to match Azcona's Count Danilo. Theirs was a subtle battle of the sexes that ended with love triumphant.

Glenda Liao (in orange gown) is Monica and Raymond Yadao is Lukas in their duet "Makikiliti Kang Totoo" from the Severino Reyes zarzuela Walang Sugat.

But the duet that blew my head away was not between a man and a woman in the throes of passionate love but the obvious affection between two girls walking by a river and gathering flowers: Lakmé, daughter of a Brahmin priest and played by Meneses, and servant Mallika, played by Fajardo, from Delibes' French opera Lakme. This famous flower duet has been sung by superstar pairings from Korea's gift to the world Sumi Jo and Ah-Kyung Lee to Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca to grand dames of opera Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne. Now we have a Meneses and Fajardo to hold a candle to them.

It was the MSO's and Viva Voce's first time to perform at the ProMac Spotlight Center. Surely, this is a sign of more enchanted evenings to come. Kudos to everyone involved in this production!

A choral rendition of Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" served as the encore after the concert closed with Bernstein's "Tonight" and balcony scene. Among those in the picture are Meneses, Chan and Anna Migallos. Photos by Pinky Lolarga Susi

Bravi!

Tenor Arthur Espiritu was called by the audience to also render a song after the final ovation for his students. Accompanying him in "La donna è mobile" from the opera Rigoletto is Najib Ismail. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Trust Espiritu to bring out nothing but the best from his 12 disciples. I missed observing his three-day masterclasses the other weekend, but I made sure that I would be back in Manila for "A Night at the Opera" at the Ayala Museum wherein the 12 showed the subtle or obvious changes in their singing and acting after being coached, or to use his own word, "hammered" by their Sir Arthur.

He shared how his workshop concentrated on character, what the young vocal artists were singing about. He was pleased that they responded well. Of this batch, he described them as "among the most beautiful voices I've worked with." Each time he returns to the home country leads to the discovery of "so much talent" here. He lamented at the same time how a lot of these talents do not get the support they need when it is time for important auditions within the country or abroad. Despite their talents, there is not enough support for music artists so they could grab that possibility of making singing their life's passion and commitment.

To the capacity crowd at the museum lobby (a positive sign for classical music events this new year), Espiritu hurled the challenge of continuing to support these artists. Congratulations to the Cultural Arts Events Organizer for taking a big gamble by giving the 12 the opportunity to learn from and closely interact with Espiritu.

Myramae Meneses and Iona Ventocilla play the already affianced but still flirtatious girls Dorabella and Fiodiligi in the aria "Prendero quel brunettino" from Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte.

Mia Ana Tanciongco looks the part in the aria "Porgi Amor" from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Her song runs: "O Love, give me some remedy!/ For my sorrow, for my sighs! / Either give me back my darling / or at least let me die."

Guildhall London-bound soprano Renee Michaela Fajardo, the only female performer in trousers that evening, stays true to her character Cherubino, a lovesick page boy who sings "Voi che sapete," again from Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro. In Italian, the song mocks love "a feeling, full of desire, / Which is by turns delightful and miserable. / I freeze and then feel my soul go up in flames, / Then in a moment I turn to ice." In the third photo, Teacher Arthur is seen at right watching his student closely. After each workshop participant exited, he greeted him or her with a bear hug, fist bump, high five or firm handshake.

Nomher Nival is a properly emotional Nemorino in Donizetti's "Una furtiva lagrima" from the Italian opera L'elisir d'amore when he sees that a love potion for his snobbish beloved works. An audience member who had heard Nival sing the same aria a year ago said this second time around, he wasn't just hitting the notes, he was feeling each one.

From the top: Carlo Bunyi, Jan Brianne Astom, who sang a beautiful Shakespeare poem "Come away, come away death"
set to music by R. Quilter and Mheco Magalit (in red gown) were the fresh voices we heard for the first time and hope to see and hear more of.

Sexy Roxy Aldiosa socks it to the audience with her coloratura Rosina singing while twirling a cloth flower and purse "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

Madness, thy face is Stephanie Quintin who brought the house down with her "Ombre Legere" from Meyerbeer's opera Dinorah. The wonderful thing about a concert of opera highlights is one doesn't have to sit through a three-act, hours-long opera just to hear a famous aria of a woman who loses her husband-to-be on the day of the wedding and is driven mad by the loss.

Nomher (playing Rodolfo) and Anna Migallos as Mimi exit dramatically as they sing their love for each other in "O Soave Fanciulla" from Puccini's well-loved La Boheme.

The faces and the future of Philippine musical theater and opera. Hello world! See you in a few! From left: Carlo Bunyi, pianist Gabby Paguirigan, Jan Briane Astom, Carlo Mañalac, Mheco Magalit, Mia Tanciongco, Stephanie Quintin, Anna Migallos, Myramae Meneses, Roxy Aldiosa, Marielle Tuason, Renee Michaela Fajardo and Iona Ventocilla.