Opera as a grand telenovela in Seasons of Desire

Lawrence Jatayna, Dingdong Fiel, Elaine Lee, and Ivan Nery

Featuring:

Elaine Lee, soprano

Ivan Nery, tenor

Lawrence Jatayna, baritone

Dingdong Fiel, piano

Programme:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

     Overture from Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492

     Cinque, dieci, venti... from Le Nozze di Figaro, K.492

     Ein Madchen oder Weibchen from Die Zauberflöte, K.620

     In Uomini from Così fan tutte, K.588

     Deh vieni alla finestra from Don Giovanni, K.527

     Papageno/Papagena duet from Die Zauberflöte, K.620

Giuseppe Verdi

     Mini Overture from Rigoletto

     Questo o Quella from Rigoletto

     Signor ne principe from Rigoletto

     Caro nome from Rigoletto

     Cortigiani from Rigoletto

     Mio Padre...Tutte le feste from Rigoletto

     Si vendetta from Rigoletto

     La donna è mobile from Rigoletto

     V'ho ingannato from Rigoletto

     Addio del passato from La Traviata

In the opera show Seasons of Desire, plot lines and devices regularly seen in popular television series were interspersed with various arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi to make opera more accessible to a broader audience. Some opera purists would’ve raised their eyebrows with this treatment, but I opted to view this production that was staged at the Abelardo Hall Auditorium at the College of Music in UP Diliman, with an open mind to see if such approach would indeed work.

Featuring a small, tight cast made up of three singers (soprano Elaine Lee, baritone Lawrence Jatayna and tenor Ivan Nery), two narrators moving the story in English (Jacqui Amper) and in Filipino (Ruth Alferez), and a lone pianist (Dingdong Fiel), Seasons of Desire put into the fore the rather silly plotlines found in current television series and how the operas from centuries ago also featured almost the same inane plots. As director Nazer Salcedo put it, opera is one grand telenovela. And it did make me wonder again how on earth did the audiences back then approved of such plots. But then again, I also wonder why modern day viewers don't complain about the nth time the heroine gets kdinapped in telenovelas.

The story weaved by Vladimeir Gonzales follows a simple story of the boy, the Farmer played by Jatayna meeting a girl, the Baker played by Lee, and they fall in love. The first tragedy strikes when the girl dies during childbirth. Years pass by and the child, Angela (Lee), has grown into an adult woman. She is seduced by her scheming employer Angelo (played by Nery) and eventually kidnaps and violates her when her father refuses to sell her out to him for one night of romance. The father then tries to avenge his daughter by abducting Angelo himself but Angela frees him since she is clueless as to the true identity of her assailant. This act proves to be fatal as Angela becomes the tragic victim of the scuffle between her father and her one time lover. Telenovelas often end happily with the heroine in her true love’s arms but this time around, the tragedy of the opera won the day.

One who clearly won the audience during the show was Ivan Nery as the hopia magnate Angelo. His performance as the devious and scheming bastard bordered on being camp but his Questo o Quella and La donna è mobile, among the main highlights of the entire show, proved that he’s one of the country’s up and coming tenors. Lawrence Jatayna gave a solid performance shifting from the oblivious and then love struck farmer, to a doting and later on vengeful father. But what caught me off guard on this night was Elaine Lee, especially on her Caro nome, wherein she shifted an octave lower in some parts. It made me wonder if she was having an off night or if her vocal range wasn't a match for the aria. She fared better though towards the end with her V'ho ingannato and Addio del passato which she sang while almost laid down on stage.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, a show formatted like this could’ve not sat well with conservative purists now. But this is nothing really new since opera pastiches that used music from different operas into a single show, which I think what Seasons of Desire is, were in fashion back in 18^th century. I wouldn’t have any reservations with how this was conceptualized and constructed for in the end, no matter what the show is, it’s the vocal performances that will matter. And in this show, the vocal performances were uneven. The production also encountered some technical kinks that should be smoothed out in succeeding efforts. Overall, these kinds of shows can indeed bring opera closer to the mainstream audience. I also think that this could also serve as a launching pad for young, upcoming opera singers as well.