Of ballets and ballets and song

Lisa Macuja obliges a fan.

Ballerina ng bayan signs my copy of the program.

Big Mama with the West End Mamas: Ces Campos-Bonner, Gia Macuja-Atchinson and Maya Barredo-Duffy

On their second to the last performance, the ballerinas and balletomanes of Midsummer Night's Dream stand on the sweeping stairs of the Cultural Center of the Philippines lobby to meet the audience for pictures and another round of applause.

Viva Ballet Philippines!

The weekends in the month of heart and arts have become full of trips to shows (visual and performing arts) all over town. But memories of the 21st of February were of a day filled with sensory overload--good thing the shows were all in the boundary of Manila and Pasay cities so getting from one theater to another only took my sister Suzy and me one leisurely stroll. Turns out leisurely wasn't what it was meant to be. We caught the 11 a.m. matinee of West End Mamas, the main act of the palabas "Ballets & Ballads" at Aliw Theater.

Afterwards, we went to the artists' dressing room, largely through the intercession of director Roxanne Lapus who I met in my reporter years at the Philippines Daily Express and interviewed many years after for a cover story on talent managers for The Sunday Times Magazine. 

Roxanne, daughter of couturier Nena Lapus, is one of those memorable persons who crosses one's life briefly but remains embedded in one's memory. I remember her as an Assumption College teacher who has directed romantic comedies and lately, musicals (The Sound of Music had over a hundred performances at Resort World's Newport Theater). For a time she was on top of promoting and marketing shows when the Metropolitan Theater (what a loss there!) still had regular seasons of performances, especially in the late '70s to the '80s, until Vilma Santos's variety show kept it alive as it was sputtering. Last year, Roxanne helmed "The Legends and the Classics," featuring Cecile Licad, Lisa Macuja and Lea Salonga.

That Sunday I overheard her talking to the young dancers after the show and reminding them to overcome their onstage fears once and for all. Words to the effect that if they themselves don't  decide to overcome those fears that make them hesitate and withhold the giving of their best, they will indeed fall on the seventh pirouette or the fifth leap. 

Teacher Roxanne said what she was saying came from a lived life. I couldn't forget her parting lines to those dancers: if you fell in love with a tarantado 30 years ago and you still didn't get over it by moving on and deciding in your mind and heart not to let it happen again, 30 years after you will fall again for a tarantado cut from the same cloth as the one you originally fell for. I wanted to giggle at that one, but it would lessen the authoritativeness in her voice. Besides, the dancers were nodding their heads in agreement the same way I was, too.

Sometimes it only took a brief encounter like that to be reminded of lessons vital to our existence. So thank you, Roxanne, thank you, Lisa , her singing sister Gia who together with Maya Barredo and Ces Campos and Ballet Manila gave it their all.

From Aliw Suzy and I walked towards the CCP with the intention of taking a late lunch first at our favorite Pancake House by Manila Bay. But we detoured to the box office so we could buy our tickets early for the afternoon matinee of Midsummer's Night Dream. It turned out the show was about to start in 15 minutes! The 3 p.m. in my mind was actually 2 p.m. There was time to wolf down a triangle of pizza and a soda and off we went to our seats.

When the curtain went up, everyone went "Ahhhhh!" at the fairy magic of a set. That was how we were transported to a dreamy forest where lovers' quarrels, mischief and mistakes were eventually sorted out till we heard the familiar strains of Mendelssohn used for wedding marches. The danseur who played the crucial role of Puck simply signed my program "Puck."

Somewhere between the two shows, I received an SMS from a Diliman campus-based friend inviting me to watch later in the evening a Noh performance at the old UP Theater. All I could say was thank you, but, Mamma Mia! I was all "culture vultured" out. At least for a day and until the next trip that will transport me out of reality.

Photos by Babeth and Suzy Lolarga

The legends & the classics March 17-18 at the Cultural Center

When you know the way to Santa Fe

Ceding this space again to friend PAT because of this spot of good news: the latest acclaim Cecile Licad reaped for her country. That's nothing new, of course, because she is nothing less than great wherever she performs.

But the delight was her new hairdo, or shall another friend Amadis term it a hair don't? It's a departure from what her audience, family and admirers are used to. Her shoulder-length tresses have made way for a radical cut. I told Pablo she looks youngish, he said she looks 16 again.

She will win a new audience, and this audience will crave for nothing less than great playing in the future, when she returns here for her one-night evening performance with fellow great dames Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Lea Salonga, and a series of provincial engagements. The latter concerts are actually more exciting to watch--the audience is quite sincere and spontaneous in their appreciation, even from the first movement alone.

And there's another fan like us out there, who now doubles as correspondent. Doc Lara Halili has followed a number of Cecile's performances all over the States.

So apres vous then, Pabs.

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Licad triumphs anew in Santa Fe

By Pablo A. Tariman

Pianist Cecile Licad -- playing as soloist of the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra under Thomas O’Connor-- practically reprised her Moscow triumph when she played Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15 at the 820-seater Lensic Performing Arts Center in this city to a rousing standing ovation last January 27.

It is the same piano concerto that got the Filipino pianist her first standing ovation in Moscow in April last year with the Russian State Orchestra.

The following day (January 28), she figured in a solo recital and got the same standing ovation from an audience earlier entranced by her Brahms concerto.

One of the few Filipinos in a predominantly American audience was Dr. Lara Halili, a certified Licad fan who filed a 6-day leave of absence from her hospital work to watch Cecile Licad.

“One of the rewards of leaving your work to watch a great Filipino pianist perform in a foreign land is that you are virtual witness to the fact that she is well-loved by audiences not just in her native country,” said Lara who couldn’t believe the awesome audience response.

Cecile Licad performing at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Licad admitted to her Filipino fan the Brahms concerto is one of the toughest in the repertoire. “Playing that is like climbing a mountain but you are instantly rewarded because the music is so profound,” she told Lara who watched the Licad concerts for two successive nights.

Lara noted that she could literally hear a pin drop in the concerto’s second movement with a super attentive audience stifling their coughing for that rare Licad magic.

“It was a great night,” added Lara. “I was particularly moved to tears by the concerto’s second movement.”

Cecile Licad with conductor Thomas O'Connor acknowledging awesome audience response.


Licad is headed for the Philippines next month before her Boston engagement to perform with Philippine Broadway star Lea Salonga and prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde with conductor Gerard Salonga and the Filharmonika orchestra on March 17, 2012 at the CCP main theater.

Meanwhile, the two latest CDs of Licad with celebrated German cellist Alban Gerhardt – Casals Encores and Faure cello Sonatas -- continue to receive rave notices.
British music Andrew Clements wrote that Alban Gerhardt's account of Fauré's two cello sonatas, both late works, repay careful listening. “Like the works themselves, his playing and that of the pianist Cecile Licad is full of subtleties, the half-tones and inflections that make the chamber music of Fauré's final decade so elusive and fragile. Nothing here is forced or made to conform; whether it's the urgent outpourings of the first movement of the D minor Sonata Op 109 or the utterly different slow movement of the G minor Op 117, the pacing seems perfectly natural, the colouring distinctive.”

Another British music critic, Jeoffrey Norris, wrote : “A gorgeous performance of the well-known Élégie comes as the first of the five ‘encores’ on this magnificent disc devoted for the most part to Fauré’s two cello sonatas, the D minor, composed in 1917, and the G minor from 1921. The passion and sorrowful rapture that Alban Gerhardt and Cecile Licad bring to the Élégie are complemented by the yearning ardour of a Romance, the virtuoso flutter and bustle of Papillon, the lyrical sweep of the Sérénade and the delicate lilt of the Sicilienne, which is also familiar in orchestral guise.

“This disc follows on from various other, highly distinguished recordings that Gerhardt has made for Hyperion of repertoire ranging from Alkan to Schnittke and Shostakovich, from Chopin to Prokofiev and Reger, and, most recently, of encores made famous by Pablo Casals (CDA67831), on which Gerhardt also teamed up with Licad. They make a particularly fine duo here, working emotionally in unison, sensing the music’s contours with like mind, breathing as one.”

Cecile Licad performs with Philippine Broadway star Lea Salonga and Filipino prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde on Saturday, March 17, at the CCP Main Theater.

Licad will have two solo performances in the provinces on March 22 at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City and March 27 in Cebu City. Her Pampanga and Cebu program features: Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61; Three Mazurkas op.56;. Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante in E-flat major, Op. 22 and Liszt’s .Miserere du "Trovatore" de Verdi – Paraphrase de Concert and Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata Call (02) 7484152 or 09065104270.

All photos by Dr. Lara Halili
Reposted with author's permission from Munting Nayon News Magazine

One night only, one night only

Pacquiao, Licad, Macuja & Other Tales of Heroism

 For the nth time, I'm ceding this space to Pablo Tariman. Last night, I came home from "FILMhamoniKa," conductor Gerald Salonga and his FILarmoniKA Orchestra's last performance in their concert season, a real jab at popularity because they selected memorable music from the movies. The repeated ovations for the young music director, his equally young orchestra and guest vocalist Bituin Escalante are a positive sign for orchestral music's future. 


Walking back to the car park, I thought aloud to my concert companions how Salonga could follow Leonard Bernstein's footsteps (his Joy of Music and his Young People's Concert series helped  popularize the classics among American children by using the then young medium of television). I noticed three videographers onstage recording the entire concert at Philamlife auditorium and took their presence to mean that "FILMharmoniKa" will soon air on TV. That means a wider audience can be reached. 

Salonga is a good communicator. He is not shy about turning to face the audience between numbers to pick up the mic and annotate a piece before it is performed. It is a format that will help create and mold a new audience that will consider concert-going a vital part of their lives. 

My hope is in his 2011 season, he will add, pound for pound, more classics in the orchestra's repertoire. May he strike a balance between crowd-pleasers like last night's "Star Wars Suite," "James Bond Theme," among others, and the musical wealth of the ages that is little seen and heard live. We see the makings of another sort of champion if he achieves this.
___________________________

By Pablo A. Tariman
 "It’s an outrage and a total disgrace to pay a boxer a million dollars just to have him punch someone on the nose while musicians can hardly make a living. Even if I were given a ticket to the Ali-Frazier fight, I wouldn’t see it it.” --  Antonia Brico, American conductor in during a 1975 presscon in Manila

“With deep concern for his millions of fans around the world, Pacquiao may have to ‘let go’ of an opportunity to finish the ‘Tijuana Tornado’ early in the fight and prolong the action up to the later rounds in order to put entertainment into the fight.”
      --  A sports writer covering the Pacquaio-Margarito fight  in Texas

The Pacquiao-Margarito fight in Texas, USA, once more put to  test the strength and status of the Filipino boxer as the greatest boxing hero for all time.

Pacquiao’s greatness is witnessed in  less than two hours--sometimes less than 30-minutes--by  millions all over the world every time he faces a new opponent.

Coming from a poor family who has seen the many humiliating faces of poverty, Pacquiao has found a way out of third world status by boxing his way to world fame.

Aside from his superhero status, he has amassed untold wealth, dizzying fame and  adulations and has conveniently metamorphosed from boxer  to product endorser,  aspiring singer, actor and now congressman of his Mindanao province. He is husband to a beautiful wife, father to healthy children and a good son to a mother who brought him up despite her own economic and marital woes in the past.

From the way he was and is now, Pacquiao is a role model , a legitimate boxing hero and a candidate for greatness which many think he acquired already.

Do other Filipinos acquire fame and fortune and qualities of greatness the way Pacquiao did.?

If the boxing glove was Pacquao’s instrument, the power of the pen was Jose Rizal’s  greatest weapon and he used it to expose the atrocities of the Spanish rulers and in the process  acquired greatness and a national hero status.

But if there are heroes in the boxing arena, there are also unsung heroes in the performing arts.

Iloilo-born Filipino tenor Otoniel Gonzaga was reaping  audience adulation in Vienna  as Calaf in Turandot and as Bacchus in the  Strauss opera, Ariadne auf Naxus and todate remains the only Filipino tenor who has sung the Verdi opera, Otello.

Another Filipino opera singer  from Morong, Rizal, Arthur Espiritu, made history by becoming the first Filipino tenor to make it at La  Scala di Milan (the Mandalay Stadium of opera) in 2007. Some 67 years ago, a Filipino baritone by the name of Jose Mosessgeld Santiago Font made the same conquest in La Scala  in  the year 1932.

Recently, Lea Salonga  was again the toast of  England and the millions of tv viewers as she sang in the 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables in London where she was the first Filipina to sing the lead part of that musical.  She is the first Filipina actor to receive  both the Olivier and Tony Awards in theater.

Of late, a 46-year old ballerina in the person of Lisa Macuja Elizalde got steady and consistent acclaim for her roles in Giselle, Don Quijote and lately, Le Corsaire. She happens to be the first and  last Filipino soloist (in fact, the first foreigner)  of Kirov Ballet where  the imminent Mikhail Baryshnikov  and Natalia Makarova came from.

After her triumphs in several continents, Cecile Licad again made waves in Michigan and Germany with her Chopin No. 1. Now headed for Russia where she will become the first Filipino soloist of the Russian State Orchestra, Licad is  also the first Filipino to get the Leventritt Gold Medal in New York (the same medal that went to  Van Cliburn and Gary Graffman) and was adjudged by a New York Times critic  Harris Goldsmith  as a new member of the  league of the world’s greatest pianists.

For their own brand of heroism, these artists deserve more than token notice from the government. They will never enjoy a pay-per view income, only a few can buy several luxury cars and mansions and their highly acclaimed performances will not get congressmen booking flights abroad for their performances.

Which bring us to reflect on the plight of artists with no millions in pre-performance contracts. They have had to make do with modest fees compared to million of dollars of world boxing champs.

Once again, let’s cheer Manny Pacquiao for the nth time for the extraordinary brain and brawn he  has shown in this Sunday's fight.

But for once, we should also remember that the world also needs heroes and heroines who can replenish and warm the heart and spirit of people  in these  difficult and uncertain times.

In this aspect, a  Cecile Licad, an Otoniel Gonzaga,  a Lea Salonga and a Lisa Macuja  have done more than enough to make our country more proud. They will win hearts and minds and they will prove they can make a difference -- not by beating an international foe to a bloody pulp --  but in showing the nobility of the human spirit through the language of music, theater and dance.

They didn't do it because it's trabaho lang.     

They did it for art, love and  life and with no hope of a state motorcade and  prospects for product endorsements.

Pacquiao's image from cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/ima