CCP Dance Series welcomes the holidays with Puso ng Pasko full length version

From an online video at the height of the pandemic in 2020, then the first post-pandemic live performance at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2021, Puso ng Pasko returns this 2022 Christmas season as a full length ballet with performances on December 2-4, 2022 at the CCP's Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (Main Theater).

Featuring the artists of the Professional Artist Support Program and Alice Reyes Dance Philippines, Puso ng Pasko, conceptualized by Ronelson Yadao, is about the unique Filipino Christmas experience told through the eyes of Lolo Val, a Pinoy immigrant living in California, as he reminisces to his granddaughter Angelita memories of the holidays back with his friends back home in Tres Reyes.

Under the mentorship of National Artist for Dance, Alice Reyes, Puso ng Pasko boasts an all Filipino creative team led by choreographers Ronelson Yadao, Erl Sorilla, John Ababon, AL Abraham, Dan Dayo, Bonnie Guerrero, and Lester Reguindin.

The ballet also features the music arrangement of National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab using the Christmas recordings of the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Miguel Master Chorale.

Other members of the creative team include Eric Cruz for production design, Barbara Tan-Tiongco for lighting design and technical direction, Eljay Castro Deldoc as co-librettist with Yadao, and Carlos Siguion-Reyna as film director.

Puso ng Pasko will have its Gala Night on December 2, 2022, 8:00 PM. Other performances will be on December 3 & 4, 2022 at 3:00 and 8:00 PM. The December 3 evening performance is sponsored by the Rotary Club and UP Delta Lambda Sigma.

For the duration of the ballet's run, the CCP Main Lobby will be transformed into a Church plaza where audience members can avail of local holiday treats like puto bumbong and bibingka before the evening performances.

Puso ng Pasko, the year end offering of the CCP Dance Series (live) is among the final performances to be held at the CCP Main Theater before the main building shuts its doors for major rehabilitation and renovation starting January 2023.

Remastered classics at the Argentine Film Festival

The Argentine Film Festival makes a comeback with a selection of remastered classics screening this November 8-21, 2022 at the Red Carpet Cinema, Shangri-La Plaza Mall.

Presented by the Embassy of Argentina, Film Development Council of the Philippines, and the Shangri-La Plaza Mall, the Argentine Film Festival offers five films from the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s.

Here is the film selection followed by the schedule in this year's Argentine Film Festival.

Agua (2007)

Director: Verónica Chen

Cast: Rafael Ferro, Nicolas Mateo, Gloria Carra, Leonora Balcarce, Pablo Testa

Unfairly accused of doping during a marathon in Argentina, Goyo – a former open water swimming champion – has abandoned everything to take refuge in the desert. Eight years later, the Marathon is set to take place again. He returns to try to reclaim his honour. Old emotions resurface and oppress him. Goyo meets Chino, a conscientious and stubborn pool swimmer who dreams of being selected for the national team. They decide to team up together.

Elsa y Fred/Elsa and Fred (2005)

Director: Marcos Carnevale

Cast: Manuel Alexandre, Blanca Portillo, Manuel Alexandre, Roberto Carnaghi

Two people who discover that it is never too late to love ... or to dream.

Esperando la carroza/Waiting for the Hearse (1985)

Director: Alejandro Doria

Cast: Antonio Gasalla, China Zorrilla, Luis Brandoni, Julio De Grazia, Betiana Blum,Juan Manuel Tenuta, Mónica Villa, Cecilia Rossetto, Enrique Pinti, Andrea Tenuta,Darío Grandinetti, Lidia Catalano, Juan Acosta, Miguel Ángel Porro, Clotilde Borella

It tells a story about Mamá Cora, a woman in her eighties, her son's wife wants her out of the house as she is driving her mad. Mamá Cora tries to help unfortunately everything she does, she does it wrong. The family goes through lots of troubles trying to solve what to do with Mamá Cora. While all this happens, a confusion makes the family believe she dies.

Un lugar en el mundo/A Place in the World (1992)

Director: Adolfo Aristaráin

Cast: José Sacristian, Federico Luppi, Cecilia Roth, Leonor Benedetto, Gaston Batyi

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

Roma (2004)

Director: Adolfo Aristaráin

Cast: José Sacristán, Juan Diego Botto, María Galiana, Nuria Gago, Adolfo Fernández

The young journalist, Manuel Cueto, bursts in on the old novelist Joaquín Góñez's lonely life, who is writing his memoirs. This encounter will bring old and forgotten emotions back to the writer, the 50/60's when he was young in Buenos-Aires, his relationship with his father and particularly the one with his mother, Roma, who gave him her broad, free and bohemian mind.

Here is the schedule for the Argentine Film Festival.

November 18, 2022

2:00 PM Un lugar en el mundo

7:00 PM Esperando la carroza

November 19, 2022

2:00 PM Elsa y Fred

7:00 PM Roma

November 20, 2022

2:00 PM Roma

7:00 PM Agua

November 21, 2022

2:00 PM Esperando la carroza

7:00 PM Un lugar en el mundo

All films will be screened for free on a first come, first served basis. The films will be in their original language with English subtitles.

PPO, conductor Noam Zur, pianist Rudolf Golez in concert: a test of the Met's acoustics

Conductor Noam Zur and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra 

The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra audience had a taste of what's to come at the latest season concert held at the Metropolitan Theater, which will be the orchestra's home for the meantime once the Cultural Center of the Philippines main building shuts its doors in 2023 for a much needed major rehabilitation.

The evening highlighted a program that spanned the globe: two overtures, one by an Italian composer and the other by a Filipino; a jazz flavored American classic that featured a Pilipino pianist; and a programmatic work by a Russian composer, orchestrated by a Frenchman, that paid tribute to a Ukrainian landmark. All of this was conducted by Noam Zur, an Israeli-German who is the 3rd to take to the podium among the five shortlisted to become the next PPO Music Director/Principal Conductor.

With such a promising global program and the allure of a concert at the newly renovated Metropolitan Theater, hopes were high for this evening. Alas, said hopes were dashed by the theater's inadequacies in the acoustics department. Despite the seamless rapport between Zur and the PPO as far as the eye can see, the sound that emanated from the stage left a lot to be desired.

Because of this, Gioacchino Rossini's Overture to Barber of Seville came off as hollow and vacuous instead of being light and playful. This also resulted into a less than ideal introduction to many of Nicanor Abelardo's Cinderella Overture as it was a struggle to decipher the work's shape and form.

In George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, featuring Rudolf Golez on the piano, both the orchestra and the soloist exhibited confidence and harmony with each other. But once again, despite the efforts of everyone onstage, the inferior acoustics was like an uncooperative collaborator muffling the dynamics, muting the nuances, and drying up the jazzy accents. Even with Golez's encore, Frédéric Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 5 in G flat major, "Black Key Étude", the fluttering notes' subtle nuances were lost.

The full effect of the Met's handicap was evident with the performance of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Even with a full army of strings, the overall sound was not full and vibrant. With the lower strings hardly audible, there was a notable lack of depth and roundness. The piece is meant to be a musical experience of viewing an exhibit with majority of the movements representing a piece of artwork. But it felt like each artwork was just a print reproduction losing the stroke textures and other finer details that can only be seen in the originals.

The encore, which was a repeat of La Grande Porte de Kiew, shed a light onthe ongoing invasion of the Russian forces in Ukraine. It also served as a reminder of how music has played a role in difficult moments in world history.

The wonderfully curated program offered a glimpse to Zur's sensitivity and outlook towards the music which incidentally gave the concert more meaning and significance. Program notes also included information on how Zur chose to perform revised versions of the Rossini and Mussorgsky pieces that are actually closer to these composers' intention based on original and more authoritative manuscripts. This is why it was such a pity that the Met's subpar acoustics made a disservice to Zur, Golez, and the entire Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

A desperately needed acoustic shell should be in place by January 2023, or else face the risk that the anticipation for the remaining half of this season falls flat and dull as the Met's current acoustics.

A bit of music trivia to lighten things up, the PPO performed Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition way back in the January 2011 season concert. Robert Ryker, who conducted that time, had a pre-concert lecture where he explained the various parts of this work. Assisting Ryker at this lecture was no other than Rudolf Golez, who played excerpts of the piece on the piano using Mussorgsky's original score. So it was quite fitting that both Rudolf Golez and Pictures at an Exhibition found their way back to the PPO stage at the latest concert.