Savoring top-class entertainment

Metro Manila audiences have been fortunate of late, with a spate of great entertainment at hand.

Continuing to awe everyone nightly inside the Grand Chapiteau or Big Top that’s been set up between the Independence Grandstand in Rizal Park and historic Manila Hotel is Cirque de Soleil with its mind-blowing production of Varekai.

Over at the CCP’s Main Theater (Nicanor Abelardo Hall), The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber has also provided primetime delight.

In our very own Big Dome or the Araneta Coliseum, Kylie Minogue wowed everyone not just with her songs but terrific production that’s become a global staple in her “Aphrodite Tour.”

And this past weekend, since Thursday’s gala night, our very own diva of classical dance, prima ballerina Maniya Barredo, got the Philippine Ballet Theater’s 2011 season to a roaring start with a superb staging of Romeo and Juliet, showcasing her pair of American ballet students, 17-year-old Naomi Hergott and 21-year-old David Kiyak.

Such world-class treats we’ve been experiencing; there must be a way of attributing all these to the matuwid na daan program of the PNoy administration. Or maybe the gods of big and small spectacles have conspired to offer complementary delectation, with Senate hearings on this-and-that addressing the lower end of the scale.  

On a more serious note, we can really count our blessings the way they’ve come on the cutting-edge performance stage. Our only regret over the past months is that no local producer or investor managed to take a slice, if only for a day, out of Robert Zimmerman’s Asian tour, that is, brought Bob Dylan in, the way a myriad of foreign expats ensured his concert’s viability in Ho Chi Minh City, not to mention Singapore. 

Why, if Cyrus Miley could draw a horde of shrieking pre-teens and then some at the Mall of Asia grounds, surely the music man spanning several generations would have blown in the wind of a grand welcome from thousands of senior citizens betrothed to nostalgia.

In any case, we can still be very happy with the recent parade of imported acts that have made June and July red-letter months in our calendar of moveable feasts.

I say once again, if you must, save up for the cost of a Varekai ticket. I know, the prob is you won’t exactly enjoy it alone; you have to bring the S.O. and/or the kids along, so you can exchange eye-pops and high fives throughout the show. So okay, then let go of that mad money for a group thrill.

I understand that plans are afoot for an extracurricular presentation of classics and standards by Cirque de Soleil’s musical performers, who have enjoyed jamming with some of our jazz greats in Manila Hotel’s Tap Room. Sometime soon, a special concert featuring non-Cirque music may be staged at the Grande Old Dame’s very special lobby. I look forward to that evening. 

Another showstopper has been each and every song rendered by an all-Australian musical crew in the ALW treat at CCP. This special program Webber’s exemplary music has been on tour from Australia and New Zealand, and it’s a first-rate production that goes on to Singapore after Manila.

For those of us who grew up with Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Lowe, as well as all the Martial Law and EDSA I, II, and III “babies” hereabouts, why, in Andrew Lloyd Webber we find a one-man virtuoso package. He’s been fittingly described as “the master of musical theatre, the maestro of musicals, and a theatrical force to be reckoned with.” 

For over 40 years he’s given the world an ever-expanding repertoire of monster hits turned contemporary classics — which have induced vocal chords to peak at their best in every KTV lounge in every town and city from Aparri to Afghanistan.

And here most of them are, with four superb male and four female singers taking turns, in solo and ensemble numbers, in traipsing through a compact sampler — for less than two hours — of Webbers’ musical and lyrical genius.

Most of ALW’s familiar signature songs are here, culled from such West End produce as Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Starlight Express, Aspects of Love, Requiem, and relatively lesser lights as Tell Me on a Sunday, Love Never Dies, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, and Woman in White.

Blake Bowden, Alinta Chidzey, Andrew Conaghan, Michael Cormick, Trisha Crow, Delia Hannah, Kirsten Hobbs, and Shaun Rennie — good on ya! Hooray for these performers — all of whom had great voices of such superb range and power. Crystal-clear diction was another highlight, somehow with the exception of certain ultra-rocked-up versions of JC Superstar numbers. 

Act 1 begins with the jaunty Love Changes Everything, and climaxes after 16 more songs with Memory as sung by Delia Hannah. Act 2 has 11 numbers, or 12 songs, since The Phantom of the Opera segues to The Music Of The Night — the most powerful and spellbinding indeed, thanks to Trisha Crowe and Michael Cormick, whom I thought was the best singer of the night. 

 Also enjoyed Pie Jesu (from Requiem), as rendered by Crowe and Kristen Hobbs. And Tell Me on a Sunday, sung by Hannah, also raised the bar while impressing on every ear the lyrical poetry inherent in ALW’s songs: 

“Don’t write a letter when you want to leave/ Don’t call me at 3 am from a friend’s apartment// I’d like to choose how I hear the news/ Take me to a park that’s covered with trees/ Tell me on a Sunday please.// Let me down easy, no big song and dance/ No long faces, no long looks, no deep conversation/ I know the way we should spend that day// Take me to a zoo that’s got chimpanzees/ Tell me on a Sunday please.// Don’t want to know who’s to blame, it won’t help knowing/ Don’t want to fight day and night, bad enough you’re going/ Don’t leave in silence with no word at all/ Don’t get drunk and slam the door, that’s no way to end this// I know how I want you to say goodbye// Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze/ Tell me on a Sunday please//... Don’t run off in the pouring rain/ Don’t call me as they call your plane/ Take the hurt of all the pain// Take me to a park that’s covered with trees/ Tell me on a Sunday please.”

Another interesting number, oh so very pop, was No Matter What — which is more associated with BoyZone. But indeed it was written by ALW, in fact included in his musical Whistle Down the Wind, based on the 1961 film of the same title. It’s also acknowledged as a tribute to BoyZone star Stephen Gateley, who died at the age of 33.

Act 2 ends with J. C. Superstar a la disco, but the encores lead us back full cycle, ending with the wondrously upbeat Love Changes Everything. Around 30 songs, then, all pulsating with musical theater genius. Now that’s value for money, and such an evening of memorable delight.

As for Romeo and Juliet, we must congratulate Maniya Barredo for her homecoming direction of this ballet that was choreographed and originally staged with her as Juliet. Similar kudos apply to new PBT president Cha-cha Camacho for the hopeful new direction to which she’s evidently steering the company.

Last Thursday evening, a couple of hours before the Gala Premiere, a reception was held at CCP’s Silangan Hall to mark the 25 years of ballet performances credited to Philippine Ballet Theatre. Then the invitees, sated with Chilean wine and such buffet treats as roast beef, jamon serrano, fresh salmon and sundry other feasting items, trooped down to the theater to thrill to the splendid performance of the FILharmoka Orchestra under the baton of Gerard Salonga, our own corps de ballet, and the principal dancers Naomi Hergott and David Kiyak. Oh, they look good together, such cutie-pie lovebirds at 17 and 21. And with such adorable personalities, too, as we were pleased to note during a TV talk show interview we had with them. No doubt this handsome pair will go a long way in the world’s stages, together and separately. For now, it was such a treat to have them “preview” their talents right here in Manila.