The Sun shines in Singapore

Singapore sealed its reputation as the arts center of Asia with the recent opening of the Singapore Sun Festival, which ran from Oct. 18 to 30. The arts festival, affiliated with the Italian Fiesta del Sole and the Sun Festival in Napa Valley, added another venue for the arts in the island-state’s calendar.

The Singapore Sun Festival featured 13 days of concerts by highly-acclaimed musicians; exhibitions by leading visual artists; readings and discussions with top literary figures; culinary delights by some of the world’s finest chefs; fine wines; film screenings; and wellness programs to rejuvenate the mind and soul. This year’s festival, the first, was premised on the theme “Art of Living Well.”

IMG Artists chairman and Sun Festival co-founder Barrett Wissman says, “I’m incredibly proud to be able to launch this festival in Singapore this year, and very, very excited to do so. The program this year at the Singapore Sun Festival is extraordinary.”

Deputy chairman and chief executive of the Singapore Tourism Board Lim Neo Chian says, “This celebration of the arts and the art of living well comes at a time when Singapore’s entertainment and lifestyle landscapes are buzzing with activity. In this exciting scene of transformation, it is Singapore’s pleasure to host the prestigious Singapore Sun Festival as it strengthens Singapore’s profile as one of Asia’s leading entertainment capitals and a premium lifestyle destination for visitors seeking unique experiences.”

The Tuscan Sun Festival was founded in 2003 originally by Barrett, his wife international cellist and composer Nina Kotova, and Frances Mayes, author of the best-selling book Under the Tuscan Sun. In fact, it was Mayes’ book which gave the festival its name. In 2006, Festival del Sole premiered in the Napa Valley, the second venue of the arts festival. The Sun Festivals are globally owned and operated by IMG Artists. The Singapore Sun Festival is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board.

In choosing Singapore as venue for the third Sun Festival, in an interview, Wissman quipped, “Singapore is about a mixture of things.”

Indeed, the Singapore Sun Festival is described as the most ambitious version of the Sun Festival, with a budget running up to six digits and with more than 50 events the public can attend. The Singapore event has been described as a convergence of the seven arts and lifestyle events, including music, literature, visual arts, film, wine, cuisine and wellness.

The Philippine STAR was one of the Asian media invited by the Singapore Tourism Board to experience firsthand the Singapore Sun Festival, and we were quite impressed.

The Singapore Sun Festival officially opened on Oct. 20 with a gala concert featuring Russian baritone superstar Dmitri Hvorostovsky, mezzo Ruxandra Donose, and the Russian National Orchestra (RNO), conducted by Alexander Vedernikov. Featuring a mixed program of orchestral music and arias from popular operas, the concert boded well for the festival’s opening with the enthusiastic response accorded by local and foreign theater goers.

With a robust and dramatic performance, Hvorostovsky wowed the audience with his versions of popular arias from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Verdi’s Otello, Rachmaninov’s Aleko and Borodin’s Prince Igor. In his first visit to Singapore, the Russian baritone sang effortlessly, his voice ringing and filling the 1,614-seater Esplanade Concert Hall. His were well-thought-out versions of these popular arias; there was no sense that he was singing the arias out of context. In the chilling Credo from Verdi’s Otello, his Iago was a likeable character, whose calling in life was to tempt fate and inflict evil on his fellows. The laughter at the end of the aria was truly spine-tingling.

The Rumanian mezzo Ruxandra Donose was received just as enthusiastically, singing arias from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Bizet’s Carmen, and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Donose has the ability to change the color of her voice to suit the character she is singing; we were treated to a tragic Orfeo, a sensual Delilah, a gamine Rosina, and a hot-blooded Carmen.

For encores, Hvorostovsky sang a rousing O Sole Mio that for a moment outshined the version popularized by the Three Tenors, Donose with a brilliant “Non piu mesta” from Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and together “La ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

The Russian National Orchestra, under Vedernikov’s leadership, proved to be a delightful orchestra with perfect ensemble. The wonderful acoustics of the Esplanade Concert Hall brought the orchestra’s sound close to the audience; it was like sitting within the orchestra. The orchestra’s strings were rich and lush, the winds and brass note perfect, and the percussion rousing in their enthusiasm.

During the festival, the RNO was scheduled to perform with its founder and artistic director Mikhail Pletnev, violinist Pinchas Zukerman, Sun Festival co-founder Kotova, pianist Piotr Anderszewski, and piano whiz Lang Lang. Other musical acts that performed during the festival were the Soweto Gospel Choir, and Cuban jazz band Tiempo Libre.

Most of the arts events during the Singapore Sun Festival are premised on environmental concerns.

J. Henry Fair’s photography show “Industrial Scars” at The Arts House presented beautiful images that on closer inspection were actual images of pollution worldwide.

Fair states, “These images originate from my obsession with our society’s dependence on petroleum and my fascination with the frightening beauty of the detritus of our industrial machine.”

Indeed, Fair’s blowups reveal pretty images reminiscent of fractal images. Wild patterns in psychedelic shades of green, blue, silver, red and ochre reveal mine tailings, effluents, and mine pits, seen from an aerial perspective. The photographs required years of flying over plants that processed coal, fertilizer, and even paper pulp. What seems pretty at first transforms into savage images of pollution.

Fair, who is known for his portraiture of classical music artists and fashion spreads for popular cosmetic and fashion brands, uses his art to express his message of “the simple power we can wield as consumers. Each dollar we spend has a tremendous effect on the producers. The power to stop spending on unsustainable products is ours. Like voting, awareness of the impact of our consumption is an obligation we must acknowledge and shoulder, both for ourselves and for our children.”

Ana Corberõ’s sculptures in “The Future Is Small” acknowledge the importance of children in today’s society. The works are variations on the child/Buddha theme she has been pursuing in recent years, universal totems that play with the points of view of viewers: for the small sculptures, you look down on the images, while with the gigantic figures, you look up at them. Accompanying the sculptures in the exhibition are poems the artist wrote to contrast with the images.

Warren Singh-Barlett writes of Corberõ’s “Universal Totem” series: “The miniature versions are straight out of Wonderland. As we hover above, we are invited to look down — whether as gods or as parents is not clear — and then the power play is reversed as we stand before their immense cousins and, turning our heads towards the skies, we suddenly see these ‘children’ as real children see the adults that surround them.”

One thing for sure: These sculptures offer a playful yet chilling look at children.

Also shown during the festival was the Farquhar collection of natural history drawings dating back to 19th-century Singapore. The entire collection of 477 paintings was shown for the first time by the National Museum of Singapore in celebration of its 120th anniversary.

The entire lot of drawings was acquired by Singapore philanthropist GK Goh in 1996; he then donated them to the museum.

The paintings were commissioned by William Farquhar, the first Resident and Commandant of Singapore during his stay in Melaka. The Farquhar collection is one of the earliest and most comprehensive records of the flora and fauna of the region.

The paintings are still vibrant in color and in mint condition despite their age because they have been left untouched for close to 200 years. After the drawings were bound and shipped back to England, they were never seen again until now.

This was the only time the entire collection was seen in public. At the end of the exhibit run, the drawings will be put back in storage, with only a representative number of pieces put on display in the museum on a rotating basis.

The success of this year’s Singapore Sun Festival will be an added venue for the arts that Singaporeans and visitors to the Lion City can look forward to during the last quarter of the year.

Says STB’s Lim, “These are exciting times for the tourism scene in Singapore. This time next year, the streets of Singapore will be buzzing as we welcome the inaugural Formula One Singapore Grand Prix. Between 2008 and 2012, The Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa integrated resorts, Gardens by the Bay, the new Sports Hub at Kallang and the National Arts Gallery will be completed. These developments, together with the hosting of the Singapore Sun Festival, will boost our profile as the preferred lifestyle destination in the region.”

* * *

For updates on the Singapore Sun Festival, visit www.singapore sunfestival.com.

For details on events in Singapore, visit visitsingapore.com.