Philippine Opera Company’s “Ang Bagong Harana” runs Oct. 18-20 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza in Makati City.

 

“Ang Bagong Harana” takes off from the success of the musical revue, “Harana.”

 

The harana or kundiman became a mainstream musical style with veteran performers such as Diomedes Maturan and Ruben Tagalog popularizing it until the late 1960s. Unfortunately, with the advent of modern music genres, the harana has quietly been left behind.

 

This is the reason why the Philippine Opera Company is mounting “Ang Bagong Harana,” said artistic director Karla Gutierrez.

 

“‘Ang Bagong Harana’ is envisioned as a love song to our country,” added Gutierrez. “We want to show audiences that there is so much wealth that modern Filipinos can mine from our traditional and contemporary music.”

 

From children’s songs to tribal chants, from planting songs to courtship ditties, from stirring kundiman to delightful showstoppers by Sylvia la Torre, “Ang Bagong Harana” will showcase the best of Filipino composers from different music genres—Nicanor Abelardo, Ryan Cayabyab, Willy Cruz, Francisco Santiago, Antonio Molina, Resti Umali, George Canseco, Ernani Cuenco, Levi Celerio, José Estrella, Constancio de Guzman and Felipe de Leon.

 

Aside from Gutierrez, featured singers are Aizel Prietos, Cris Go, Janine Santos, KL Dizon, Lawrence Jatayna, Michael Odoemene, Nazer Salcedo, Al Gatmaitan, Jurgen Unterberg with the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group.

 

Directed by Floy Quintos, “Ang Bagong Harana” goes onstage Oct. 18-19 at 8 p.m., with matinees on Oct. 20 at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

 

Call tel. 8229609 or 0917-5272880, or TicketWorld at tel. 8919999, or follow Philippine Opera Company on Facebook.