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| Daniel Oyarzabal and Enrique Viana |
Featuring:
Enrique Viana, tenor
Daniel Oyarzabal, piano
It
was a trip down musical memory lane as the Sonidos
de España, Spanish Festival at the CCP started with a concert
featuring Zarzuela music at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’
Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater). The concert, entitled Romantico Enrique Viana (The Undending
Passion of the Zarzuela), featured tenor Enrique Viana who was accompanied by
pianist Daniel Oyarzabal.
All
I know about the Zarzuela before was that it’s a form of live entertainment (a
cross between an opera and musical theater that alternates spoken and sung
scenes along with dance) originating in Spain .
The Zarzuela never took off beyond Spain ’s
borders except in its colonies. And one such colony is the Philippines
which took the Zarzuela and transformed it into the Sarswela.
During
the concert, Enrique Viana not only performed songs taken from various
Zarzuelas but he also gave a lot of background information regarding the pieces prior to singing making the audience appreciate the music a bit better. From his lecture, I
learned that the Zarzuela dealt mostly about daily Spanish life and reflected current events at that time but sprinkled with a generous dose of the craziness
and absurdity that I’ve learned to expect from such forms of live
entertainment. I initially thought that Zarzuelas were set in Spain
but there was one featured in the concert, Katiuska by Pablo
Sorozábal, that was actually set in Russia
during the time of the revolution.
Aside
from Katiuska, Viana also performed
excerpts from Zarzuelas such as Luisa
Fernanda by Federico Moreno Torroba, Don
Gil de Alcalá by Manuel Penella, Alma
de Dios by José Serrano, La
Tabernera del Puerto by Sorozábal, La
Chulapona by Torroba and Doña
Francisquita by Amadeo Vives.
I
find the songs that Viana performed extremely lyrical with sweeping melodies
and wide leaps challenging his tenor vocal range. I wondered how the other songs in Zarzuelas intended for other vocal ranges
sounded like. It is also interesting to note that while most Zarzuela music are
in the usual Spanish folk tradition like the jota and seguidilla, it also took in dances from other lands like the habanera and the mazurka. During breaks by
Viana, pianist Daniel Oyarzabal performed solo pieces which I think were also picked
from the Zarzuelas that were featured in the concert. For an encore, Viana sang
Dahil sa Iyo by Mike Velarde, Jr.
that was highly appreciated by the audience even though some were foreigners.
The
show made me curious as to how an actual Zarzuela was staged. And I also wondered how
different and similar the Zarzuela is to an opera and a contemporary musical.
Alas, the Zarzuela has fallen out of fashion and I don’t
think that any of the old works are still being staged nowadays.
Seeing an actual Zarzuela is a remote possibility now, but thanks to Enrique
Viana, I was still able to see a glimpse and hear a snippet of this art form.
Romantico Enrique Viana (The Undending
Passion of the Zarzuela) was presented by the Cultural
Center Philippines ,
the Embassy of Spain, Instituto Cervantes de Manila and Bench.
