Why Raul Sunico, Nedy Tantoco and Massimo Roscigno want you to watch Verdi

MANILA, Philippines - Sometime in your life, you must have heard Verdi’s music. You cannot escape appreciating Verdi. Most likely you marched during your graduation to the tune of his composition Aida,” Cultural Center of the Philippines president Raul Sunico reminds us.

“Verdi influenced the reunification of Italy. That’s why 200 years later, he is still remembered and revered,” declares Rustan’s president Zenaida “Nedy” Tantoco.

“Giuseppe Verdi was a genius. He was the greatest Italian composer,” proudly states Italian Ambassador to the Philippines Massimo Roscigno.

 These three cultural dynamos have joined forces to present “Viva Verdi,” a concert celebrating the composer’s 200th birthday at the CCP on Dec. 10.

The concert will present selected opera scenes from La Forza del Destino, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Nabucco, La Traviata and Aida. Sunico explains: “Instead of presenting a single opera or a recital style, we are putting together excerpts from major operas. There will be a narrator and a script to explain the relevance of these excerpts.”

Featured artists are Italian tenor Gian Luca Pasolini, Spanish baritone Alvaro Lozano, and leading Philippine singers Rachelle Gerodias, Margarita Giannelli, Thea Perez, Nenen Espina, Ronan Ferrer and Andrew Fernando. Conducting the Manila Symphony Orchestra is Maestro Ruggero Barbieri, with Coro Tomasino, Ballet Philippines director Floy Quintos and narrator Jaime del Mundo completing the cast.

“Verdi is considered one of the greatest opera composers of the Romantic era, alongside Giacomo Puccini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Rossini and Georges Bizet. He lived in the Golden Age of Opera when elaborate costumes and set designs ably complemented the dramatic singing and acting in a grandiose setting of elegant operatic venues of Europe. The themes represent human frailties, emotions and experiences in everyday life such as love, anger, treachery and tragedy — which ironically are still persistent in today’s society. Thus opera serves as a mirror of ourselves but in a dramatic and artistic fashion,” we are told.

The Italian Embassy, the CCP, the Philippine-Italian Association and Rustan’s certainly want the concert to be an enjoyable and educational experience for music aficionados as well as students. Ambassador Roscigno explains that while tickets are priced at P1,500 for orchestra center, P1,000 for orchestra side and P800 for balcony, with a 20-percent discount for senior citizens and persons with disabilities, the Embassy is providing free balcony seats and free transportation to students.

There will be a Master Class on Italian opera to be conducted by Pasolini and Lozano at the UP College of Music on Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. On Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. at the UP Department of European Languages, a conference on Italian excellence in research, discovery and innovation will be led by Ambassador Roscigno, Prof. Emmanuela Adesini, architect Romolo Nati and Dr. Luigi Cavestro. 

Multimedia exhibitions are slated at the University of the Philippines College of Music in Diliman from Dec. 9 to 20; and at the UST Conservatory of Music in January 2014. In the films, images of Marilyn Monroe, Maria Callas, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela,, Martin Luther King Jr., the Titanic and the Berlin Wall glide through. Why? Because the themes of togetherness in death, self-sacrifice, victory over oppression and triumph over tragedies are interwoven.

 â€œThe best of the human soul comes out in the worst moments,” says Ambassador Roscigno. “Typhoon Yolanda became a moment of unity and closeness as Italy contributed a total of two million euros or P116 million in cash and in medical aid and basic necessities.”

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For details, contact the CCP box office at 832-3704 and Ticketworld 891-9999, Lulu Vasas at 859-2109 or write to culturale.manilla@esteri.it. or visit FB page VivaVerdiManila2013.