Recently, The Bachelor Girl invited the fellow in the floppy hat to watch a rehearsal of the Philippine Opera Company's staging of Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme.
(Yup. Jenny, ACS, myuzeeshun... sorry you missed it. Wait, rephrase: NYA NYA NEE NYA NYA! Nyahahahaha.)
I wish I could bring my mom to watch the "greatest love story ever sung" with me -- after all, it was she who introduced me to classical music -- I hope you folks will go and watch it. If the rehearsal is any indication, this staging of La Boheme is going to rock.
Let me share with you my first time to watch an opera rehearsal... and how the experience blew me away.
A couple of days ago, Arbet forwarded me an email from Lorna, letting me know that she had been inviting bloggers to a rehearsal of a Philippine Opera Company's staging of Puccini's La Boheme.
(C'mon, folks. Geek that I may be, I'm very into the arts and culture scene... and it was only after blockmate myuzeeshun's invite that I had been able to.)
Anyway, last night I made my way to the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The instructions were to enter via the side entrance, and I arrived close to 7 PM.
(Interestingly enough, it seemed that the Gawad Urian Awards was going on at the "little theater"; I saw Mark Gil, Gina Pareño, and fellow Kafagway scion Eric "Kidlat Tahimik" de Guia and one of his kids -- not sure if it was Kidlat or Kabunian I saw.)
Anyway, when I got upstairs I found myself meeting a few bloggers who were waiting for our 8 PM call time. Soon afterwards, Lorna arrived and she ushered us in, apologizing that she had only been informed that the rehearsal had started early, and that we would only catch Acts III and IV of the opera.
(Amazing, really, how Lorna is such a sweetie even when faced with a snafu as that. To my way of thinking, it wasn't a snafu, given that it was a rehearsal, but I suppose it bothered Lorna quite a bit that we had a bit of an error on the schedule. Lorna, dearie, it's fine, really. Thanks for the invitation -- I forgot to thank you last night!)
We then sat ourselves down at some distance not too far from the stage. I was able to get a few bloggers' URLs (notesfromelsewhere.blogspot.com, femalenetwork.com, morethanfiction.multiply.com, alwaysanxious.com, missingpoints.com; missed getting a lot of others dammit), and in a while soprano Ana Feleo, one of the leads of this show, came up to us and said hi.
Oh. My. Lowrd. Right?
Not too long after, director Floy Quintos came to us and likewise said hi. The director is so friendly; one of the first things he did was apologize for us having missed the first half (as if it was something to apologize for -- ano ba, direk, this is a rehearsal heh heh) and he gave us a quick run-through of what to expect in the second half.
When the lights went out and the rehearsal began, from time to time the music stopped, and I was among those who tried to listen to conductor Helen Quach as she gave instructions to the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. If there's one thing I feel about the conductor, Maestro Toscanini quite likely have little to complain about her baton work.
I must admit to being surprised at the stage set when the curtain went up. See, Floy decided to transplant Puccini's work to contemporary Manila (although I must admit that with the sepia lighting it seemed more to me like chaos central in the '80s, especially with what the actors were wearing). Act III had a "peryahan" carnival set, complete with wooden horses (although the high sheet metal walls with barbed wire and the chain-link fence reminded me more of the set of EJ), while Act IV gave the feel of erm, an informal settler's shanty -- still completely in keeping with the spirit of Puccini's story.
(Aside: except for one or two mishaps involving camera flashbulbs -- of which I noticed that the offending party apologized or bit off a muted curse out of shame -- none of the bloggers who went to the rehearsal went and acted criminally. It warmed my heart, let me tell you, that the bloggers I was with last night had respect for those on stage.)
That evening showcased the vocal talents of Gary del Rosario (Rodolfo), Jennifer Uy (Mimi), Lawrence Atayna (Marcello), and Ana Feleo (Muzetta). If you want the lowdown on these brilliant singers, do visit Karla Gutz's post on them.
Here are a few low-resolution snaps... and a little snippet from the rehearsal.
Wow.
After the rehearsal, we were able to steal an hour of director Floy Quintos' time, and he regaled us with anecdotes, both on opera and, well, off opera heh heh. He spoke of La Boheme being "the original 'young love, sweet love'" story, of its being the basis for the popular musical Rent, the Act III scene he called "the longest good-bye scene in the world" (hahahahaha!), and of how the magic of opera is that because of the beauty of the music one tends to suspend disbelief and look beyond the appearances of the singers and into the opera itself.
(It was one of the quips of Floy that it wasn't really farfetched for a lanky fellow like Lawrence being with a big hottie mama like Ana that earned the director laughs and giggles out of kind "awwwwww" amusement; I wanted to say that of course it was not farfetched at all heh heh.)
The bloggers who went were very engaged and enamored of the director, I must say. Among some of the questions that was asked was the difficulty of bringing opera to the Filipino mainstream, to which he said that this was indeed difficult, opera not being really of our culture plus the fact that it was sung in Italian (Floy mentioned the late National Artist Rolando Tinio who had translated La Boheme into "vulgar" Tagalog, a libretto that has been lost -- curse you, universe! -- but in the main he said that had the staging been in the local lingua franca, there would be among the gliteratti who would turn up their noses eschew the opera for being in Filipino... leche silang, yun lang). To another comment by an elderly that it seemed that the orchestra was overpowering the singers' voices (which I didn't hear nor see, of course), Floy said that it was one of the difficulties of Act II; however, opera singers being opera singers, he made an allusion that to suggest that an opera singer be miked was something that would cut the singer to the quick... as in, "Me? An opera singer? Use a microphone?"
The love of the craft, I dare say. I also found it heartening that Floy spoke most endearingly of his experience with opera singers and their sense of selflessness and love for their craft, and what it seemed to me to be an absence of a star complex -- something that apparently exists to some level among some theater actors (in so far as the number of appearances they make during a run), and that exists quite a lot among the gaggle of barely-talented television and movie actors and pop singers.
(Yup. "Pop singers are spoiled." Wahahahaha.)
I left the CCP with Fritz and Juned, who arrived sometime during the rehearsal; I don't know about them, nor about the other bloggers, but I'm certain I'm going to make the effort to watch the Philippine Opera Company's staging of La Boheme.
Some particulars snagged from Our Awesome Planet and Gibbs Cadiz (check out their posts, they've got details galore):
Tickets for 2008 La Boheme, CCP Main Theater, October 3 to 5, 2008
October 3, 2008 (8:00 PM) GALA NIGHTOrchestra center P4,000.00
Orchestra side P3,000.00
Balcony 1 center P1,500.00
Balcony 1 side P1,000.00
Balcony 2 P 500.00
Box (6 exclusive seats)
Parterre Box (6 exclusive seats) P30,000.00
Upper Box P20,000.00
Lower Box P10,000.00
October 4, 2008 (8:00 PM) and October 5, 2008 (3:00 PM)Orchestra center P3,000.00
Orchestra side P2,500.00
Balcony 1 center P1,500.00
Balcony 1 side P1,000.00
Balcony 2 P 500.00
Box (6 exclusive seats)
Parterre Box P20,000.00
Upper Box P15,000.00
Lower Box P10,000.00
Discounts: Senior Citizen 20%; students 50% (for Balcony 1 and 2 sections only)
Contact the Philippine Opera Company at 892-8786 or visit www.philippineoperacompany.com for more details. Tickets are also available at all TicketWorld outlets with trunkline number 891-9999.
I wanna go watch La Boheme. Now to make that happen.
Later, all.
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for your understanding and patience. And, thanks for taking note of the interesting tidbits Floy shared with the bloggers. Till next time. :-)
i love love love La Boheme! Ü cheers to the singers, direk floy, the orchestra and conductor helen quach Ü
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