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.

MSO's masterstroke

The MSO under Prof. Arturo Molina about to take a bow at last week's "Opera Vs. Broadway" at Ayala Museum.

The Manila Symphony Orchestra's masterstroke this year in attracting an ever-increasing number of followers in Metro Manila is pitting popular music fare with the classical. In its nine rush-hour concerts this year alone, we've seen them do "Bach Vs. Beatles," a concert that the MSO later brought to Baguio City along with "Soundtracks and Symphonies" as part of its Music Everywhere outreach program.

Even with a serious program like July's "Transfigured Night" (music by Schoenberg), the program never failed to engage. Always there is an educational component--a conductor or MSO official faces the audience to give the context of the music. After all, to continue to exist in this generation of millennials, the MSO has to use the media the kids are used to for social marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mailchimp) and for staging (attractive PowerPoint presentations projected in the background).

Each concert is entertainingly annotated by Jeffrey Solares, the orchestra's executive director, who knows his audience's kaliti by making references to popular figures or ideas in a manner and a language that are also pop. He banishes all notions that classical music is only for the elite and the erudite. He encourages more people to attend live performances instead of settling for YouTube or recordings because of the elements of excitement and unpredictability, saying, "Lots of things can happen--a voice can croak, strings can break..."

He defines opera as a musical art form that emulates Greek theater and formed by poets, philosophers and musicians who had studied Greek drama. To open last week's program of "Marriage of Figaro," the MSO played Mozart's "Overture to Marriage of Figaro," an opera that Solares describes as controversial during its time in the last 1700s because it dared to poke fun at the dukes, duchesses and other members of the royalty and it was from the point of view of the servants.

Michaela Fajardo, soprano with a creamy voice

What made the concert doubly special was the participation of some members of the country's premier vocal ensemble, Viva Voce. Soprano Michaela Fajardo surprised us immediately with the aria "Voi Che Sapete" or "Tell Me What Love Is." It's a textured voice--high and deep, if that were possible. Plus it had volume that could extend up to the back row of the capacity crowd. Impresario Joseph Uy, if he had been there, would've described the voice's quality as "creamy" to mean a pure lyric voice.

Carlo Mañalac may look skinny and fragile for a tenor but his voice has power.

Solares disclosed that Fajardo was his violin student for four years. When she wasn't turning up for lessons anymore, he was happily surprised to learn that she had shifted to voice as her major. Young, fresh-faced tenor Carlo Mañalac showed a nervous quiver in his voice in the initial notes and lyrics of Donizetti's romanza, "Una Furtiva Lagrima" from the opera L'elesir di amore. Solares noted how operas are all bound by one theme: love or doomed love.

Our favorite aria was sung: Musetta's aria "Quando Me En Vo" from Puccini's La Boheme with soprano Iona Ventocilla proving that she can alternate the roles of the suffering seamstress Mimi and the coquettish Musetta. (By the way, the chamber version of La Boheme will be restaged by Viva Voce on Nov. 26 at Ayala Museum after the acclaimed summer presentation of the well-loved opera at Baguio's Hill Station. Last Tuesday's museum audience had a glimpse of the dramatic dynamics and singing of Ventoncilla as Mimi and Mañalac as Rodolfo in their duet "O Soave Fanciula.")

The rush-hour concerts, meant to draw Makati's young professionals so they can skip the after-5 p.m. traffic, are short enough not to require an intermission, but the MSO instead played the sweetly melodious intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" that had the audience heave a collective sigh at the end. For this alone our evening was made.

There was, of course, the accession to popular fare: overtures from My Fair Lady and Westside Story, songs from Phantom of the Opera, Jekyll and Hyde where tenor Carlo Falcis proved he could be a belter in reality TV shows cum singing competitions, Rent and Les Miserables. For an encore, the MSO obliged with the overture from Chicago.

I confess to being biased. When the classics face off with pop, the classics win by a knockout.