Bravo! PPO

Tears were streaming down Maestro Ruggero Barbieri’s cheeks while he was keeping the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra floating magically on its third encore number, the ethereally melodious overture from Cavalleria Rustica, at the Spanish Hall of the Prague Palace in the capital of the new Czech Republic. It was the last stop in PPO’s epic two-week, three-country first-ever European Tour, made remarkable and memorable by insistent curtain calls after each number and standing ovations and insatiable cries for encores.

Was the maestro in tears because he himself was touched by how beautifully the orchestra was playing – and almost beginning to sound like the aspired-for PPO sound? Or because he was feeling sad that this European Tour was finally coming to an end, the vibrant realization of his dream for the 28-year-old orchestra that exceeded even his expectations?

Maybe both; but the maestro did not even know that he was in tears until after the concert when a violinist remarked upon it. In fact, Barbieri even looked embarrassed when told this. But he would admit that he was truly ecstatic over the outcome of the first-ever and historic European Tour of the PPO and if he indeed cried, it was for great joy.

Maestro Barbieri had envisioned the European Tour as the climax of the long-term plan he put together in 1997 when he was hired as principal conductor and musical director of PPO, the resident orchestra of the CCP. In his vision, he had the support and motivation of CCP’s president and now chairman, Baltazar Endriga, who had instructed Barbieri to prepare the plan; along with the former Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines, Delfin Colome, who had not turned his back on his commitment to do all he could for the tour even long after he was assigned somewhere else.

The two-week tour, from Oct. 19 to Nov. 2, covering three countries – Spain, Austria and the Czech Republic – had been given the final big push with the major sponsorship of Rustan’s which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the co-sponsorship of Alitalia Airlines, Philippine Tatler, Bulgari and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, not to mention the very supportive President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who contributed to the traveling expenses through the Presidential Social Fund.

Alitalia flew the 80-man orchestra to Spain for the start of its tour. Their delicate instruments were flown in their new fiberglass flight cases, bought in Singapore shortly before the tour. Their instruments followed them, unscathed and on time, from one concert hall to another, in every city and in every country the orchestra went. From Madrid, after a night’s rest, they boarded two coaches that took them on a five-hour drive to Gijon in Asturias, along the Costa Verde of the Cantabrian Sea in the northernmost tip of Spain.

No place could have augured well the success and warm reception that PPO would experience during its six-city, one-week tour of Spain. Gijon provided the warm-up, so to speak, for the orchestra whose rigorous tour schedule was enough to dismay the veteran members, let alone the new and younger members who comprise a great half of the orchestra; it also gave them a taste of what was to come for the rest of the tour.

The small but select audience at Gijon’s Teatro Jovellanos was thrilled and delighted by the all-Filipino repertoire designed by Maestro Barbieri. Impressed by the orchestra’s "expressiveness and technical brilliance," as a writer in a Gijon newspaper wrote afterward, the audience demonstrated their appreciation with curtain calls after each number and long standing ovations and repeated encores. It was a pattern that would be replicated all throughout PPO’s tour.

It was in Gijon where the two guest vocalists, soprano Camille Lopez and tenor Abdul Candao, both flying in from Vienna where they are based, joined the orchestra just two hours before the start of the concert and traveled with the group for the rest of the concerts in Spain as well as in Austria and the Czech Republic.

From Asturias, PPO lumbered down to Galicia, where they performed the next day at the Auditorio de Cangas de Morrazo (Pontevedra), for its inauguration. Still unprepared for the unexpected calls for encore, Maestro Barbieri had to ask the audience to wait for "at least two minutes" while the backstage crew dug up the musical sheets of Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers.

All throughout Spain, the maestro adhered to his all-Filipino repertoire consisting of the Filipino Folksongs Overture by George Bernard Green; kundimans by Nicanor Abelardo (Mutya ng Pasig, Bituing Marikit) and Antonio Molina (Hatinggabi); duets from the zarzuela Walang Sugat by Fulgencio Tolentino (Makikiliti Kang Totoo, Julia Niyaring Dibdib, Sa Hirap at Ginhawa); Angel Peña’s Igorot Rhapsody; Felipe de Leon’s Manila Sketches; and Redentor Romero’s Philippine Portraits.

This program would be modified a bit to include, for a surprise, Strauss in Austria and, with courageousness, Mozart in the Czech Republic. The encore numbers, as many as four in some cities, which the maestro and his orchestra were only too happy to oblige, were unfailing crowd-pleasers like Turina’s Third Movement from Danzas Fantasticas, Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers, Jimenez’s Intermedio from La Boda de Luis Alonso, the haunting Romance, a Filipino composition (with Renato Lucas on his cello) and on extraordinary instances, the overture from Cavalleria Rusticana and Forsyth’s The Dance from the Atayoskewin Orchestra Suite.

From Pontevedra, the PPO hopped over to the beautiful city of Santiago de Compostela, famous for its unrivaled Romanesque cathedral and shrine to St. James. They performed to a packed and appreciative audience at the Auditorio de Galicia. Already at this point, Maestro Barbieri had confirmed the wisdom of his repertoire: Not only was there no way the Spanish audiences could miss their spiritual and musical kinship with Filipinos, they were also delighted by the way Filipinos had adapted their zarzuelas. In fact, in Spain as well as in Austria and the Czech Republic, audiences loved Camille’s and Abdul’s solos and duets from Walang Sugat.

From Santiago de Compostela, the PPO members hit the freeway for the seven-hour drive to Madrid. The city of lights was the highlight of PPO’s concert series in Spain, held at the Teatro Monumental on Atocha street near the Plaza de Colon. It was attended by cultural, social and academic luminaries and graced by the presence of the evening’s host, Rustan’s father-and-daughter tandem, Ambassador Bienvenido Tantoco Sr. and Nedy Tantoco. The evening’s performance was covered by Spain’s foremost network RTVE (to be aired six times on TVE; schedules to be announced later). After the concert, Ms. Tantoco hosted a cocktail party at the magnificent Palace Hotel, right across from the Plaza de Colon, with elegant guests in attendance.

The successful performance in Madrid was matched in Burgos, the home of El Cid, and in Miranda de Ebro, where the concerts were part of an arts festival marking the 77th Dia Universal del Ahorro. Quite interestingly, savings banks in Spain are in the forefront of arts preservation and promotion; a portion of their earnings is dedicated to this mission, which has seen them, among other things, constructing theaters in places all over the country, more than the national government had ever constructed and would commit to do, and luring large audiences with exceptionally good programs and extremely affordable tickets.

The accolades in these places, by respected names in cultural circles, were succinctly summed up by Jesus del Campo, director of three important choirs in Galicia. The orchestra is "muy bien dirigida," he said, and the instrumental pieces were "una mezcla de estilo oriental en linea classica occidental," in effect "mucho colorido y exquisito, muy elegante, finisimo y lindo." The zarzuela solos and duets, he also said, sound like Spanish zarzuelas, "pero mas suave y mas dulce."

On Oct. 27, the PPO boarded Alitalia in Madrid for the short hop to Rome and then Trieste where waiting coaches sped them to Klagenfurt, a few kilometers inside the Austrian border. On the evening of the next day, a Monday, the musicians played to a full house at the Klagenfurt Konzerthaus; among the people in the audience were the proud parents of Maestro Barbieri who came from Bergamo in Italy to watch him for the first time conducting the Filipino orchestra.

The Filipino compositions in the first half of the program so stunned and delighted the audience, they rewarded the maestro and his musicians three curtain calls before they drifted to the lobby for the intermission. The second part rolled to a good start with Kasilag’s Divertissement for Piano & Orchestra with guest pianist, the young and virtuosic Aries Cases, on the keyboard. The maestro followed this with Jimenez’s Intermedio from La Boda de Luis Alonso and Turina’s Danzas Fantasticas op. 25. The audience was fired up and clamored for encore after encore.

And what would be just right for the Austrian concertgoers? Why, the Blue Danube, of course (they clapped delightedly when the first chords were struck) and the Redetsky March (it got them clapping their hands in time with the music all throughout). After that fourth and last encore, the PPO had completely won their hearts. "Very impressive sound, very brilliant technique and interpretation," said Sigismund Seidl, famous conductor of military music (the province of Karinthia where Klagenfurt belongs is notable for stirring military marches). His comment on Blue Danube? "Very interesting!" Ernest Hoetzl, music director of the Music Society of Karinthia who had conducted the PPO several times in Manila, looked very pleased: "Tonight they played very well. And I liked the selection of the program very much."

"It was an enrichment to us," declared Dietmar Schwarzenbacher, who came from neighboring Vienna. It was like coming home," said Camilo Antonio, poet and a resident of Austria for the last 30 years. "The PPO broke new grounds in Austria-Philippine relations – it’s a diplomatic coup!" exclaimed the Philippine Ambassador to Vienna, Victor G. Garcia III, who came with his wife, the former Connie Guanzon.

From Klagenfurt, the PPO embarked on an almost whole-day trip by coach to the Czech Republic for the last stop of their European Tour. On Nov. 1, they performed at the breathtakingly magnificent Spanish Hall at the Prague Castle complex in this beautiful Bohemian city.

Aside from the choice Filipino pieces which consistently elicited resounding applause (especially the kundimans and the solos and duets from the zarzuela Walang Sugat), Maestro Barbieri stuck out his neck by doing two Mozarts. The first was the majestic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra k. 504 with the extraordinary and legendary pianist Nena Vilanueva taking it marvelously to its final crescendo. This was followed by the Prague Symphony and the few Filipinos in the audience who understood the risk Barbieri was taking were holding their breaths.

The Czechs were effusive in their praises. "It’s fascinating!" said music composer Geraldine Mucha. "I find it very fresh and it’s so interesting how an Asian culture makes use of Western orchestration." "The quality of the orchestra is truly extraordinary, their sound is very rich, and their playing, a real joy!" commented Jana Outrata, executive director of an international networking company. Many in the audience were entranced by Camille Lopez. "She was fantastic!" said Alan Levy, editor-in-chief of Prague Post. "Her songs sounded very Russian, they reminded me of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin." "The soprano was beautiful!" remarked the ladies from the South African, Ghanian and Nigerian embassies. Ambassador from Malta, Max Turnauer, promised to give her a contract.

It was composer Jeffrey Ching, who flew in from Frankfurt for the concert, who gave the PPO their best homeward-bound send-off. After commenting on the Mozart performance ("Very brave, but I think they carried it off very well"), he said: "I hope seriously that they can do a foreign tour again and I will be very proud if they will include one of my compositions in their tour."