Since I turned 63 last Dec. 30, I thought that my year-ender (or what passes for it) should pay tribute to those amazing senior citizen in the arts.

Just before the year closed, I learned that  filmmaker and opera director Franco Zeffirelli  directed  his latest “Turandot” in—of all places—the Middle East. The new sparkling venue is the Oman Opera House right in Muscat, capital of the oil-rich nation in the United Arab Emirates.

So, what’s the big deal?

Nothing, really, except for the jolting discovery  that Zeffirelli is now 88 years old.  Opera production is not for the faint-hearted, and if you are 88, you will need the energy and stamina of a 25-year-old to survive as an opera director. But, lo and behold, El Zeffirelli is directing a grand opera  at a ripe old age of 88 and giving interviews to CNN as though his latest project  was a mere walk in the park.

I relate with this film and opera director because I saw his “Romeo and Juliet” when I was in college and loved it. To top it all,  my good friend, Romanian diva Nelly Miricioiu,  appeared in at least three Franco Zeffirelli productions at the Met and Covent Garden. Just three years short as senior citizen, La Miricioiu just sang “Tosca” at the Covent Garden and told reporters, “What’s wrong with singing ‘Tosca’ at 57? Opera icon Magda Olivares did just that at age 57.”

Placido, Otoniel

In the Oman production  is  the eminent conductor-singer—another senior citizen in his late 60s—none other than Placido Domingo! A few months back, he was doing a baritone role as Iago in a Covent Garden  production of “Otello.” About Domingo’s age is the first and only Filipino Otello, Otoniel Gonzaga,  who just sang King Herod in “Salome” in Austria.

Gonzaga was Domingo’s understudy in the Washington Opera production of “The Merry Widow” opposite another ageless senior citizen, the great Mirella Freni, in whose  Italian master class our own Rachelle Gerodias had attended.

I saw Russia’s legend of dance, Maya Plisetskaya at the CCP in the early ’80s when she was past 60.  Last  November, I just learned  that the great Maya just danced in Athens with a special Maurice Bejart work called “Ave Maya,” and she was in her mid-80s!           Arts legends are either dead or dying at her  age, and here she is dancing  in 2011 and getting more fans in her mid-80s!

While I have worked with mostly young winners of the National Music Competition for Young Artists, from pianist  Rowena Arrieta to cellist  Victor Michael Coo, I have also worked with the veterans (no single or double quotes there).

Santamaria, Reyes

I am referring to the Romantic Piano Concerto  team of pianists Ingrid Sala Santamaria (now 72) and Reynaldo Reyes (in his mid-70s or more).           How do they differ from their junior editions?

Reyes, for one,  had logged countless evenings of all-Beethoven and all-Bartok program with the energy of someone in the early 20s!

For the record, Santamaria and Reyes  have logged more than 400 concerts nationwide since 2001 from Aparri to Davao, and had  interpreted more than three  concertos in one setting. Just imagine playing those concertos some 400 times in different places, and you can see what they went through. It’s like doing a Pacquiao workout without the benefit of a pay-per-view income.

Cecile Licad  and other pianists  do only one concerto per engagement (she did three  concertos  with PPO—then called the CCP Philharmonic—when she was 14, and that was in 1975 at the CCP).

But another senior citizen by the name of Dr. Raul Sunico (now CCP president and UST Conservatory of Music dean) did five  Rachmaninoff concertos in one evening and survived it with fairly good aplomb.

Look at Plisetskaya,  Zeffirelli, Domingo and Gonzaga on one hand, and Santamaria and Reyes on our native soil.

I have heard of music schools planning to retire their senior citizens for one reason or another. Let me just remind them that brilliant artists in the league of Cecile Licad, Joseph Esmilla and Victor Michael Coo learned a lot from  dedicated teachers in their senior years  than from cute, younger teachers  with whistle-bait figures.

(With apologies to teachers below 60!)