Dulaang UP’s restaging of Noli Me Tangere: The Opera with music and libretto by the late National Artists Felipe Padilla de Leon and Guillermo Tolentino respectively, challenges cutting-edge

professional theater through the ingenious scenography of its auteurs and the excellent performance of its cast. It is a glorious celebration for the birth centenary of Felipe de Leon. In lieu of a 35-member symphony orchestra, Artistic Director Alexander Cortez made do with “intimate opera”—all of only two pianos, a flute and the human voice—due to U.P.’s budget constraints. De Leon’s Noli Me Tangere is the first full-length Filipino opera. It was completed and first staged in 1957 at the Far Eastern University auditorium in Manila. It was performed again with full symphony orchestra at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the 1980s. As intimate opera, it debuted at the UP Guerrero Theater last year and popular demand brought it to return engagements in the same venue recently in July to August this year.

The grandeur and depth of de Leon’s music under the baton of Musical Director Camille Lopez-Molina lull the audience to the thrill and agony of protagonists Crisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara’s romance and the tragic ordeals of Sisa and her sons Basilio and Crispin as immortalized in the seditious novel by Jose Rizal. The repertoire flowed seamlessly through the singing of a vast array of Filipino folk musical forms—kundiman, kumintang, balitaw, basulto, dalit, martsa, polka and balse (identified by musicologist and U.P. Professor Felipe Mendoza de Leon, Jr.). Each is appropriate for a mood, scene and meaning. The classic arias of Maria Clara, Sisa and Basilio, as well as the polyphonic duets, trios and choruses adumbrate audience empathy with incredible lightness. The performers sang the soul-stirring melodies with consistent clarity in the rendition of words and notes. De Leon ‘s romantic classical music rouses sentiments but not in doses of heavy drama. It touches the heart poignantly yes, but not piercingly. Listening to the lamentation songs of Maria Clara, Sisa and especially Basilio, is like being touched by a tender caress that allows tears of heartache in sympathy to flow gently.

The songs make real the themes of sorrow and sacrifice in an oppressive earthly existence for the love of the beloved—sweetheart, family and Motherland. Tolentino’s prosaic verses are plain, good conversational Tagalog in perfect indayog. The harmonious blend of music and verse by these two great artists in a staged opera as performed by Dulaang UP is uplifting. It brings us, the audience of our time, closer not just to our history but to eternity—through this magnum opus of blissful music.
The scenography in a small performance space like the UP Guerrero Theater affirms the magnificence of muted sophistication in the poverty of funds. Layers of bamboos fill up the stage walls. A huge rectangular frame reminiscent of fiesta welcome arches loom high at centerstage right. It towers over a platform that at times serves as an entrance ramp, or when divided in two would serve as tombs in a graveyard or students’ desks in a school. Bamboo poles are also suspended from the stage rafters like giant chimes so that they serve as bells for bellringer brothers Crispin and Basilio to hold, pull and swing. A bamboo pedestal does well as the belfry where Crispin is whipped to death by the cruel sacristan mayor. A ladder leads to it. Another ladder is against the wall where Sisa initially stretches her body to defy gravity in a feat of madness while in search of her missing sons. The versatile bamboo installation changes ambiance—a festive party in a house, a joyous picnic by the bamboo grove, a shadowy sepulcher, an outdoor crematory in the dark for the dead Sisa and Elias.

Director Alexander Cortez designed the cast’s movements so that they could hide behind or pass through the bamboo walls or forest. Gino Gonzales’ bamboo set exhibits its flexi-best in a remarkable double chase scene: the guardias civiles hunt down the fugitives Ibarra and Elias as Basilio chases his mother Sisa who insanely flees from her son. The layered bamboos effectively hide and reveal the chasers and the chased as they run betwixt bamboos thus suspending the spellbound audience’s disbelief in the gaps of real and historical space-time.

The characters’ wardrobe made of the abel, the indigenous Ilokano handwoven fabric, blend well with the bamboo background. The various values and patterns of beige and brown of the male camisa and female kimona at saya plus the kandongga kerchiefs of the whole ensemble are accented for highlight by the old pink checkers on Maria Clara’s skirt. The simple cotton fabric made into spectacular costume enrapture the audience in a historical journey through a vintage ride that is counterpointed by the captivating Dona Victorina’s (lively Tanya Corcuera plays the role ) sarcastic holler and laughter in her stark red, bustled gown. The patina of antiquity suggests a fitting flashback as achieved in cinema. But here, we see up close the variegated earth tones of Filipino traditional textile and of the ubiquitous bamboo—real and authentic, tangible and tactile. The simple, monochrome matte vision transforms the spatially complex mise-en-scene into astounding theatricism of texture. Astounding, because we intensely see, hear and feel so much in an actually so small a performance space for opera. Dexter Santos’ choreography enhances dramatic action unobtrusively.

Ohm David’s Technical Direction, Jonjon Villareal’s lighting design, Winter David’s video design and Pow Santillan’s graphic design successfully combined soft shadows and silhouettes such as those subtly cast on the bamboo stage to introduce and locate scenes, set and enhance moods: cruciform gravemarkers, ancient syllabary, fiesta buntings and other familiar images and symbols seem to float like icons in a dream. The sudden but quiet blaze for a pyre lit up by Basilio to burn Sisa’s and Elias’ bodies is a technically clever creation of a soft spectacle of fire. John Gaerlan’s prop invention of the modular crocodile reminiscent of bamboo lanterns and the Chinese parade dragon is ingenious in its flexibility as dance prop. Sound design by Jethro Joaquin is appropriately supportive of the intimate opera concept. Nothing in excess. Dramaturgy by Katte Sabate kept the meaning of theatrical grandeur in its austere best in the portrayal of folk symbols. Sans histrionics, the total theatrical experience is modulated in sound and elaborately textured in sparse space—faithful to the spirit of de Leon’s heavenly music. The auteurs achieve dramatic subtlety as when the susurrus chants of lamentation penetrate the listener’s heart like a grating scream. Such experience may be felt as when love is affirmed through the quiet gaze or a light touch on the skin. Such is the intricate interweaving of sensorial details in intimacy.

The cast sustained energy and operatic versatility—singing, dancing and acting. The coquettish Maria Clara as essayed by soprano Myramae Meneses is modestly flirtatious with Ibarra. Her voice rings sweet in the thrill of romance and even as she is strongwilled and courageous, bids an anxious farewell to her lover and regretfully accepts the truth that she is the villainous friar’s bastard daughter. Ivan Niccolo Nery is an earthy tenor who physically embodies an aggressive Ibarra as a passionate lover and audacious rebel. Jonathan Velasco brings to life the infamous villain, the Spanish friar Padre Damaso, with virtuosic thespian verve in whatever scene—whether he mocks Ibarra or when he cowers in fear under threat of a knife as he is mocked by an outraged Ibarra.

Jean Judith Javier dramatizes Sisa with lightfooted vitality in her rendition of de
Leon’s complex multimetric Awit ni Sisa. Javier’s Sisa is a wounded mother bird whose calls and flight dignify her tragic fate with gracious finesse in song and dance. Miguel Anenias as Sisa’s youngest son, Crispin, is naturally convincing as he drops dead by the whiplash of the sacristan mayor. Matthew Anenias as the eldest son, Basilio, mesmerizes the audience in his heartrending sorrowful plaintive for his lifeless mother. In grief, he embraces his mother farewell in precise melodious moments as many in the audience helplessly shed tears along with him. Lyricist Tolentino’s ordinary words shimmer in Anenias’ delicately controlled emotive and sensitive singing.

Sisa’s death scene ends memorably with Basilio’s songlines: . . . Aking inang sinisinta, idilat mo ang iyong mga mata, Aking inang minamahal, huwag mo akong pabayaan, Ako’y iyong babantayan, Kahit wala ka na, Inang. Basilio’s aria is a defining moment for this opera that illuminates history by bringing forth the intricate textures of the intimate depths of love in the Filipino soul.

 The Filipino youth all over the country should be able to watch this precious heritage opera now and for all time. They must not be deprived of the inspired visions achieved by our creative geniuses despite our poor economy. A national tour should be in order.

(Per President Proclamation 283, President Benigno Aquino 3rddeclared the period May 2012 to April 2013 as the Centennial Year of the Birth of National Artist for Music Felipe Padilla de Leon. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Cultural Center of the Philippines lead in the celebration.)