Ang Bagong Harana returns on stage

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Opera Company’s Ang Bagong Harana returns on stage on June 6 to June 10 in time for the Philippine Independence Day celebration.

Mounting a show like this is an act of faith. All around, the commercial theater and concert scene is full of imports, both the ideas and the actual productions. When the people at the Philippine Opera Company decided to do Ang Bagong Harana, they said they wanted to do it because “we need to be reminded of how beautiful our music is and how much our souls can be enriched by hearing it again.”

With a cast of 10 dedicated singers, plus the members of the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group, they set out creating the production. The stirring arrangements of multi-awarded arrangers were more than enough basis for the staging and the choreography. As the production took shape, they felt more and more inspired by the over-all picture that they were painting for an audience: A picture of an “Age of Innocence” that Filipinos badly need to return to.

From children’s songs to tribal chants, from planting songs to courtship ditties, from stirring kundiman to the delightful showstoppers by Sylvia La Torre, from the works of the three C’s — Canseco, Cruz and Cayabyab, the portrait they paint is of a race that is inherently good, inherently strong and kind and noble. 

And that is why they wanted to push through with Ang Bagong Harana, “despite financial constraints, despite the constant struggle to find sponsors and sell tickets, despite the seeming foolhardiness of doing a Pinoy Musical revue when every other Pinoy seems interested in listening to anything but his own traditional music. Now, more than ever, we need to believe in ourselves. The songs that have served us well in the past will also serve as well as we go bravely into the future.” 

The songs you will hear in Ang Bagong Harana are a legacy of Filipinos. It will showcase the finest Filipino composers from different music genres — Nicanor Abelardo, Ryan Cayabyab, Willy Cruz, Francisco Santiago, Antonio Molina, Resti Umali, George Canseco, Ernani Cuenco, Levi Celerio, Jose Estrella, Constancio De Guzman and Felipe de Leon, to name a few.

Directed by Floy Quintos, Ang Bagong Harana will have a re-run on June 6 to June 9 at 8 p.m. with matinees at 3:30 p.m. on June 9 and June 10 at the Carlos P. Romulo Theater, RCBC Plaza, Makati.

For details, please call the Philippine Opera Company at 0917-5272880, 0917-5224183 or TicketWorld at 891-9999.