In 1957, composer Felipe Padilla de Leon wrote the first full-length Philippine opera, a dramatization of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere.” With libretto by eminent sculptor Guillermo Tolentino (both would later be named National Artists), the production was mounted at the historic auditorium of Far Eastern University.
On a recent autumn evening, as Cecile Licad was having dinner of Japanese noodle soup, vegetables and green tea cheesecake with her son Octavio and Manhattan-based author Ninotchka Rosca, we just had to ask her why she needed to practice seven to eight hours every day when she had been playing the Rachmaninoff piece almost all her adult life.
When you take away the celebrity faces, the cultural backgrounds, and the barriers raised by distance, physical handicaps, dissimilar economic classes, religion, gender, skin color, age and family relationships, will you be able to understand how two people eventually find each other?
