MANILA, Philippines - You must have heard of Fitzcarraldo, the 1982 film of German filmmaker Werner Herzog who won the Cannes Best Director trophy for the said film. It is about an opera-obsessed man (played by Klaus Kinski) who wanted to introduce opera in a South American jungle. He hires a ship to transport piano and opera props passing through mountains and waterfalls with the noisy natives numbed to silence by the voice of Caruso, supposedly one of the greatest opera singers who ever lived. His obsession: To build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Another award-winning film, The Piano, directed by Jane Campion came to Manila and its delicate theme didn’t escape the censors. What I liked about this film is the supposedly mute character (played by Holly Hunter) whose attachment to the piano is explored beautifully in the film. And so she brings along her piano to New Zealand where she will meet her future husband. The sight of the piano being unloaded on a deserted beach is one of my favorite scenes.
The sight of upright pianos being transported by small boats from island to island around Negros and Ilolio is exactly what Bacolod-based piano teacher and piano dealer Cecile Asico does for a living — aside from maintaining a music school.
When I thought of bringing pianist Cecile Licad to the countryside in the late ’80s, I actually thought of having a pictorial of her on the beach with a piano. But my piano handler reminded me a whiff of sea air getting into the piano string can damage the instrument.
End of my piano promo fantasy.
After watching Fitzcarraldo, it was my turn to transform my “madness” into reality. I was no rubber baron like Klaus in the Werner film but I had passion for music — that’s the only thing I have in common with Fitzcarraldo.
I set my eyes on Catanduanes, an island in the Pacific which is just as typhoon-ravaged or a perennial typhoon path like Samar and Batanes.
Some people cannot imagine operatic arias in any concert in this island which my influential friends said needed more livelihood projects (more poultry and pig pens) than piano music and operatic arias.
Nonsense, I dismissed the cynics. Just because we are poor doesn’t mean we should just stick to the music of April Boy Regino and Yoyoy Villame.
And so one summer day in 1992, I brought tenor Gary del Rosario (formerly with Cleveland Opera now with Seattle Opera) and soprano Luz Morete (she became a voice scholar of Goethe House in Germany) to Catanduanes. I scheduled two concerts — one in the capital town of Virac and another in a pastoral center in Bato town near an old church by the river (it promptly washes away bridges every time there is a typhoon in this Pacific island).
The Bato concert venue suited my Fitzcarraldo fantasy. Just a few feet away from the Bato River and just near a mountain range, the venue (which I wanted to transform into an opera house and seats only about 200 to 300 people) had good acoustics which enabled boatmen to hear the singers while they are wading through the other side of the river.
I thought the audience froze upon hearing Ricondita from the opera, Tosca. In the concert the next day in the capital town, the tenor got a standing ovation. Going home to the town proper, I saw people walking to their homes and talking excitedly about a hair-raising voice — their first in the island.
But before this concert, my piano tuner spent two days fixing the available upright pianos which had seen better days.
Upon insistent island demand, Del Rosario and Morete returned to Catanduanes and after performing in the regular venues agreed to perform for prisoners of the Catanduanes Provincial Jail upon request of a religious organization as a Christmas treat. I thought that after listening to the tenor and soprano, some prisoners might just bolt jail to hear more arias.
Isn’t this an improvement over my Fitzcarraldo fantasy?
With Licad, I transported pianos from Manila to Legaspi City, Albay, from Manila to Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, from Manila to Paoay and Currimao, Ilocos Norte and from Manila to Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. In the last outreach concert of Licad, we moved piano from its origin in Manila to the Ayala Malls in Greenbelt and Alabang and again to Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija to Noveleta, Cavite.
With Ingrid Sala Santamaria, we hired a truck that brought a grand piano from Manila to Baguio and on Banaue where the legendary rice terraces were its prized possession.
After visiting Calbayog City in Samar twice, I realized there is no good enough pianos fit for Dvorak and Paganini. Upon knowing that live chamber music is hardly heard in the island, I decided that a piano had to travel exactly 735 kilometers from Manila to Calbayog to make the first Samar international music festival a reality.
This time, the piano had to travel from Manila to Matnog, Sorsogon and is loaded into a roro ship for an hour in a half sea ride to Allen, Samar and then another two hours of land travel from Allen town to Calbayog City. Aside from the professional piano movers, I had to bring along a piano tuner.
Here is what I got from my latest film advisory: German New Waver Werner Herzog is set to return to fiction filmmaking with a Victorian-era drama called The Piano Tuner based on a 2002 novel by Daniel Mason about a British man who is sent to a remote village in war-torn Burma to tune the piano of a daffy soldier.
After I dragged a piano tuner from Manila to Catanduanes, Ilocos, Cagayan, Currimao, Nueva Ecija and Baguio City, I will be re-living Daniel’s novel when a grand piano travels from Manila to Samar.
(Filmmaker Marilou Diaz-Abaya gifted me with that book and she could relate to it because a grand piano traveled with her when Licad performed for the second time in Baguio City in 2004. I remember that she berated the piano tuner (a damned good one) when she smelled liquor while the piano was being checked at the Baguio Convention Center. “Nobody drinks a sip of anything while the piano is still in bad condition!” Abaya’s voice thundered through the cavernous concert hall. When she found out I had no budget for a stage manager, she volunteered to act as one. “Okay, you do your concert management while I take care of Cecile in the dressing room. Post-concert well-wishers were shocked to see that my stage assistant was the award-winning director of Jose Rizal and Muro-ami.) What I realized — when I thought of doing a remake of Fitzcarraldo and The Piano (and now The Piano Tuner) in real life — was that there is a shocking absence of good pianos in the countryside. And to think that there are more pianists than violinists, more pianists than singers and more pianists than cellists in this country.
Even in Metro Manila, the good pianos number no more than 10. The rest are just expensive looking pianos fit as status symbol-furniture but not good enough for the likes of Licad and company. The existing ones in the provinces are good for restaurants and bars, partying, calisthenics but not good enough for Brahms and Chopin sonatas.
What I am trying to say is that for a country who claims to love music, nothing is being done to help the country’s first-rate pianists get a first-rate piano. I think the CCP and NCCA should set aside funds for a touring piano to do justice for the country’s growing number of first-rate keyboard artists. The main reason why world-class pianists think twice before going to the provinces is because of the absence of good pianos.
Only madmen — not worried by concert deficits — can make pianos cross rivers, mountains and Pacific channel.
I hope a good Samaritan from Samar can acquire that piano so that it doesn’t have to travel another 735 kilometers from Calbayog and back to Manila. Poor concert organizers will again do a Fitzcarraldo to bring back that piano to the island for future concerts.
(By the way, the piano which will travel from Manila to Samar for the Oct. 29-Dec. 5 First Samar International Music Festival concerts at the Ciriaco Hotel is the same piano used by Mary Anne Espina in the unforgettable Shostakovich sonata with cellist Willie Pasamba and the same piano used by pianist Rudolf Golez in the hair-raising Mendelssohn Trio with violinist Joseph Esmilla and cellist Victor Michael Coo. Samareños who want to acquire that grand piano and loan it to concert organizers for future concerts in Samar may call 0906-5104270 or 748-4152. The ROS Music Center deals with a wide array of musical instruments that can fit your budget.)