Manila Pianos Artist Series launches 2023 season; Dingdong Fiel to hold monthly solo piano recitals

Manila Pianos Artist Series opens its 2023 season with a solo piano recital by Dingdong Fiel happening on January 8, 2023, 6:00 PM at the Manila Pianos Showroom located in Paseo de Magallanes, Makati.

Billed as First, this solo recital will feature piano sonatas by composers Nikolai Medtner and Sergei Rachmaninoff. This performance marks the first of Dingdong's 12 monthly solo recitals for 2023 featuring piano pieces that he has never performed publicly before.

Tickets are priced at P1000 each with senior, PWD, and student discounts available. Reservations can be made via GCash payment to 0917-4158876 under the name of Richard S. After paying, send confirmation, along with payer's name and number of tickets to the same number. Reserved tickets can be claimed at the gate on the day of the performance.

CCP Met Opera in HD screens Donizetti's La fille du régiment at Greenbelt 3 cinema

Ring in the New Year with a vocal firework display of high Cs as the CCP Met Opera in HD presents Gaetano Donizetti’s La fille du régiment screening on January 10, 2023, 5:30 PM at Greenbelt 3, Ayala Malls Cinemas in Makati.

Catch a rare encore performance at the Metropolitan Opera by tenor Javier Camarena, singing Tonio's explosive aria Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme that features nine high Cs. The subsequent encore brings the total of high Cs to 18. Camarena stars alongside soprano Pretty Yende as the titular "Daughter of the Regiment" Marie.

Rounding up the leads are baritone Maurizio Muraro singing Sergeant Sulplice, mezzosoprano Stephanie Blythe as the Marquise of Berkenfield, with award-winning actress Kathleen Turner making a cameo appearance as the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Enrique Mazzola conducts this production by Laurent Pelly.

The CCP Met Opera in HD, now on its seventh season, is a special program of the CCP Film, Broadcast and New Media Division, Production and Exhibition Department, in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Filipinas Opera Society Foundation, Inc. and Ayala Malls Cinemas.

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.