I’m hopelessly awed by the operatic voice. I’ve been star-stuck since my first full opera in Vienna, “La Sonnambula,” by Bellini, a most difficult opera, requiring a certain maturity of the soprano’s voice and training in bel canto, the equivalent of vocal calisthenics. I don’t remember the singers, but I’ve never forgotten the experience.
I had not heard such voices before, and I just totally lost it. I felt permitted a glimpse of heaven and cried throughout the performance. My mother, my traveling companion, who had wanted to take me elsewhere, was puzzled and disappointed by my strange behavior.
“Gustong-gusto mo manood ng opera, tapos wala kang ginawa kundi umiyak!” she said. I was 18.
Celestial sounds
Since remarrying someone musical—indeed the whole family—I’ve been exposed to all kinds of musicians here and abroad. But still, no one awes me like opera stars.
It’s not about their persona, but about the fact that inside them lives this voice that belongs to another world, a voice that without a microphone can fill the theater with celestial sounds.
To my mind opera singers possess, by the grace of God, and professional training, superhuman voices, unmatched in quality, tone and range, almost divine in nature. That being so, I don’t expect to bump into them in ordinary places—like Gerry’s Grill at Glorietta, Makati.
I did. And if anyone was more surprised to find ourselves among serious music and entertainment reporters at a press conference in the presence of the cast of Rossini’s comic Cinderella opera, “La Cenerentola,” including Arthur Espiritu, it was Vergel and myself.
The long friendship of Babeth Lolarga with classical music impresario Joseph Uy had brought us to Gerry’s Grill.
Surprised herself, Bibsy Carballo remarked, “Could this be their way of bringing the opera to the level of the common folk?”
It must have been quite a descent indeed, but soon it became clear that those celestial voices reside secure inside them, in some safety deposit box, while their mortal bodies happily feasted on local favorites: kare-kare and bagoong, sinigang, sisig, etc.
Trained voices
The opera stars met the press seated on barstools, thus raised the better to be seen—and heard, which wasn’t really a problem for them. Their trained voices carried their words well above the din of restaurant voices and natural lunchtime activity, although not so the untrained voices of the reporters, like Pablo Tariman and Amadís Ma. Guerrero.
My own faltering Roces ears didn’t help, either. But super voices must come paired with super ears, because the opera singers had no trouble hearing the reporters. Vergel busied himself caricaturing the stars, irreverently, as is his wont, but, surprisingly, celestial beings had a sense of humor, too.
I couldn’t help notice how young, fit and gorgeous both male and female performers were, and how articulate they were, and passionate about their craft, notably the conductor from Singapore, Darrell Ang, now based in Russia.
“More than business, the state of the arts will reflect [human] progress,” he said.
Gone are the days when costumed refrigerators sang tragic arias onstage, with the audience having to struggle to ignore copious bodies of passionate lovers who couldn’t quite manage an embrace. Now we can enjoy operatic voices without such distractions.
“La Cenerentola” turned out to be a challenging opera, especially for the sopranos, who rose to the challenge superbly: American Karin Mushegain, who played the lead role, and the two stepsisters, our very own Myramae Meneses and Tanya Corcuera. It was as light and funny as Bellini, I imagine, intended it, and much credit on that point goes to bass-baritone Noel Azcona.
I especially enjoyed watching the conductor delivering on what he had promised. Describing his job, he said at the press conference, “The conductor has to be with the singer, breathing with the singer, his hands singing the lines with the singer. Between the artist and the audience is the conductor.”
More wonders
More wonders were in store for us. After the performance, friend and fellow journalist (I’m taking liberties for myself now) Gemma Corotan and her charming husband, Klaus Kolb, themselves in the audience that night, invited some of us to their newly built home-resort in San Juan, Batangas.
The other guests were the lead tenor, Arthur Espiritu himself, and his wife, Christine, not in the cast but a soprano in her own right, and Aaron, their two-year-old son. We could not get any closer to a star—and Arthur could only be one of heaven’s boasts.
We had not formally met Arthur, but after hearing him at the Ayala Museum, we’ve watched him whenever we could.
At the first encounter, the Philippine-born, naturalized American with a Master’s degree in Music from the University of New Orleans had hopelessly taken us with his rich, smooth, easy tenor issuing from this slim, handsome figure, which in the realm of opera is certainly more than welcome, if not expected.
But more than anything, it is the polish and clarity of his rendition that struck us. As Vergel would exclaim at every challenging run, “Ang linis!”
With us at the resort were our concert host Joseph, Babeth, and other production members like Camille Lopez Molina, the assistant musical director and her two daughters, not yet in their teens but already showing their own promise in opera, and Alan Andres, head of marketing for the promotions.
No ordinary time
As it turned out, Arthur had been singing in a rock band—and also playing drums—before he wandered into opera, a fact kept from Vergel, who otherwise would have brought his guitar for what pop or jazz or standard he could get out of him that he could insert himself in a little sing-along role.
“Tony Bennett is doing it,” he later said, with both high pretension and great frustration.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t get near the water at the beach or pool, but this was no ordinary time. I closed my eyes and put on my bathing dress in broad daylight to join Vergel and the Espiritu family in the infinity pool.
At the amazingly scenic resort, Arthur looked every bit the loving husband and a hands-on dad to his little, chubbier replica, Aaron. But never for a moment did I forget that inside him was this magical voice—and there were hints of it when he laughed or called out to his son running away from him.
Soon he will be leaving for Germany to rehearse for opera lead roles in the region. But since he has made his nest here, in Las Piñas, he’ll be back on our local stage to grant us countryman mortals a bit of heaven.
And we’ll be there.
