There is a big, incongruent world teeming with sex, slander, drugs, drunks, and unwed mothers. It is not short of bullfighters, gold-diggers, cross dressers and insomniac princesses. Each story is an open book that had been adapted into movies and telenovelas given a modern, mainstream twist. Some Filipino directors make it more colloquial and hango-sa-tunay-na-buhay (true-to-life) by adding hair-pulling and screaming scenes, plus the attendant push down several flights of stairs. In Hollywood, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger would be caught by the camera in the act of murdering and/or cheating on their wives.
But wait! In the TV or movie versions, you won’t find a seasoned conductor wielding his baton in front of a full, live orchestra; they don’t have experienced singers who have spent a lifetime perfecting the timbre or tone of their smooth, strong, and angelic voices; they cannot boast of lavish props and costumes; And a velvet-lined, gold-gilded theater completes this opulent package.
What is this world? Where are we?
At the opera.
It is not for the wimps and faint-hearted either. I say this because if you were not accustomed to tuning your ears to those glass-shattering voices, you would storm out wondering how a fully-packed theater could find any sense and sensation from such breath-consuming activities.
When I first heard opera music, it came wafting from our living room, past the window, out to the yard, where I was chasing after my brothers and climbing mango trees. Together we would mimic and sing in the vernacular, “Hopiang ‘di mabile” (Bean cake that could not be sold) to lampoon Guiseppe Verdi’s “la Donna e mobile” (the woman is fickle) from the opera Rigoletto. (Trivia note: Before this song’s first public performance in Venice, it was rehearsed under very tight secrecy: a necessary precaution, because it proved to be very catchy and within a day or two after its first public performance, every gondolier in Venice was singing it.)
Tell me what could sound more hip and trendy and ah, cool-tured?
In the ’60s, among my music albums of Frank Sinatra and The Beatles, I would catch a long-playing album with a fierce-looking man dressed in velvet and tights on its cover. Where did that come from? Mysteriously, it would disappear and in its place, another LP album would appear with a fat woman dressed in a long flowing gown holding a handkerchief, wearing a frown and looking so frail that she was going to fall out of bed, in anguish. Sheez. Who’s been sneaking these albums into my collection? Hint: He walked in silk pajamas at night and wore leather slippers.
One night, I heard this tender melody being sung in French. I was familiar with the English version Softly Awakes My Heart (thanks again to the man in silk pajamas) so I sat up to listen. It was “Mon Coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” (my heart opens itself to your voice) by French composer Camille Saint-Saens from the opera Samson and Delilah. I was so moved by the aria that I consulted the Encyclopaedia Britanica to learn more about the composer. Saint-Saens also composed Dance of the Animals (if you ever sat in front of an aquarium and you were dumbfounded by the beautiful fish and aquatic specimens swimming by, you would have probably heard this music in the background).
Opera got into my skin in prescribed dosages. First, like in any form of entertainment, I wanted to understand the storyline. You’d feel comfortable to know that the plots are centered on human adventures and emotions starting with love and its frivolity, fickleness, fun and fantasy. Second, comes the arias or the dialogue put into music and sang. The ones that would linger in your memory would be the ones with a hummable tune, sang with fervor and passion by a tenor or a soprano, the lead singers. Third, the extravagant costumes and stage sets that seem to declare that money is no object; they are there for the senses to feast on.
This feeling of extravagance is carried by the plush interior of the opera house. It encourages you to come dressed in your finest because you’re going to see and hear a world you’ve never heard before. In olden times, opera was in fact the only form of entertainment and everybody went to watch it. There was no such thing as a privileged “rarefied” crowd. The general public came in droves because they were entertained by the story and the music was easy on the ears. But if dissatisfied, they showed their disgust by throwing rotten tomatoes and fruits on stage. The opera has come a long way although many still consider it as an acquired taste. Opera companies are sinking in debt and have awakened to the reality that if they were to survive, they would need more patronage from the general public not only from their well-heeled patrons with deep pockets.
A few years ago, my children took me to a stage musical, Rent, that was a smash hit in Broadway for this hip-hop generation. I sat next to my cousin who was just as “time-warped” as I was because we could not relate to the music. I decided to concentrate on the dialogue to catch the main gist of the story. Whispering to my son, I asked, “Anak, is this like the opera, La Boheme?”
My son replied, “Shhh, Mom. It is La Boheme, circa 2k!”
“Is that so?” I asked. Quickly, I felt like I was hip and trendy too. This play, however new to me, was depicting the social thread of a new generation thick with problems befalling their lot. Poverty, compassion, camaraderie, competitiveness, jealousy, undying love, illicit sex, substance abuse, bad health, etc. In short, nothing far fetched from what I grew up with. But I was happy to note that the original served as an inspiration. And the youth responded with enthusiasm over the version that they made. Nothing, however, beats the original. Even up to the present time, Mimi’s lament and Rodolfo’s regrets can still be heard and seen and understood by a great number of audiences, old and new alike.
This is opera. Come and sit and watch and listen. Saint-Saens, Mozart, Puccini, Wagner and Offenbach are still at work today to entertain us all in a grand and special way.