Verdi would have blinked, but

NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. -- In newspapers here, Moro pirates are clearly being pinpointed as the raiders who kidnapped 20 people from the posh diving resort of Semporna in Malaysia's Sipadan Island last Sunday. In a radio interview from Zamboanga, a "voice" on DXRJ radio claimed the Abu Sayyaf to be behind the abduction of the hostages -- half of whom were foreign tourists.

The Malaysian police were, of course, delighted to pass the buck to us for "responsibility" in not preventing the hostage-taking and robbery in one of their most-publicized "paradise" resorts. (Remember all those ads you saw about wonderful "Semporna", so peaceful, so lovely, on your cable television programs?)

There's strong suspicion that the kidnappers were Taosug, judging from the language spoken during the assault by six masked gunmen carrying AK-47s and a rocket launcher. The kidnap victims included two French tourists, three Germans, two South Africans, two Finns and a Lebanese, as well as a Filipino worker and nine Malaysians.

The New York Times headlined its piece: "Tourists Are Seized in Malaysia; Tie to Philippine Clash Claimed." The daily USA Today titled its article, which appeared yesterday: "Authorities Plan Rescue Effort After Kidnapping at Island Resort."

However, as the banner headline in today's STAR says, the Abu Sayyaf is DENYING it had mounted the raid and kidnapping. If this is so, it was a case of good, old-fashioned Moro piracy. Or were Malaysian bandits trying to blame us Filipinos, the usual fall guys in the region, by posing as Taosugs from Sulu.

The Sulu Sea and the Celebes Sea are, after all, the traditional proving grounds of the Taosug "Moros" aboard their swift kumpits and motorized vessels which replaced the old-fashioned vintas with the colorful sails of legend. (It's interesting that when you're in Kuala Lumpur or Johore Baru, Malaysia; or Singapore, radio broadcasts give you the weather conditions in our Sulu Sea, while Philippine radio and television normally do not).

In any event, we hope those hostages abducted in Semporna are rescued. But I must underscore it's the responsibility of the Malaysian authorities and the Sabah police. It's cute of our Philippine National Police deputy director (General) Reynaldo "Wyck" Wycoco to tell reporters that the Semporna raiders were speaking Tausogs and "were headed towards Philippine waters." But why such eagerness, General? I've heard of credit-grabbing, but why are we so eager to grab the blame?

Technically, if our claim to North Borneo (Sabah) had prospered, Semporna including Sipadan and the rest of Sabah would have been Philippine territory, or more precisely the property of the Sultan of Sulu. But in that controversy, the Americans and Brits shot down our claim and gifted Sabah (North Borneo) to the Malaysians.

Indeed, there are close to half a million Filipinos (including fake Moros) living and working in Sabah -- that's how close our archipelago including Abu Sayyaf-ridden Basilan -- lies to that "Malaysian-controlled" region.

After a rainy Easter Sunday, the past two days have been glorious with sunshine here in New York and adjacent New Jersey. However, it's still a chilly 40 degrees outside, in sharp contrast to sweltering Manila.

The Presidential and Senatorial campaigns here, on the other hand, have heated up -- Pinoy-style. The Republicans are trying to turn the heat up on the harsh post-Good Friday raid on the Miami home of "exile-boy" Elian Gonzalez by armed INS agents and US marshals, which saw a terrified six-year-old seized by the raiders and whisked off by plane to Andrews Air Force base to be "reunited" with his Cuban father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

The anti-Fidel Castro Cuban-Americans, naturally, are furious and almost catatonic. Bill Clinton and Attorney-General Janet Reno (no charmer in personality, I must say) are being assailed for their Gestapo tactics. In Miami, Cuban-American militants have called for a general strike, seeking to declare Miami a "dead city" in protest. Nobody knows what will happen. There are some 780,000 Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County, or 35 percent of the area's 2.2 million residents. The city's Cuban-born mayor, Joe Carollo, wants to fire Police Chief William O'Brien for his police department's participation in the government "raid" to grab Elian from his grand-uncle's home in "Little Havana."

The newspaper columnists all over the nation -- so much like ours -- are having a field day, either excoriating Clinton and Reno, or (a minority) praising their action. On television, there are so many talking heads commenting on the Elian "case" and the "raid," including obnoxious chatterbox lawyers, male and female. All that fuss and bother! What about the street kids who are starving -- but nobody wants them?

A poll taken by USA Today-CNN-Gallup, however, found 60 percent of Americans "approving" the raid, and only 35 percent against. The respondents, on the other hand, were split on the use of force: 36 percent said "the force was justified," while 33 percent said "some force was justified, but not the amount used"; and a final 27 percent said "no amount of force was justified."

It seems to me, although I'm personally pissed off about the entire traumatic assault on the Miami house, that most Americans are getting sick and tired of the Elian Gonzalez "saga" and wish the entire thing could go away -- so they could go back to more unsettling matters, such as "Will Microsoft be split into two?" or "Can the stock market recover?" and other earthshaking subjects. The "e" they're interested in is apparently not "Elian" but e-commerce and what taxes are being sneaked in next. Being the world's only remaining Superpower is exhausting.

Just when we thought that Broadway had gone blink, with only one glorious hiccup left, The Lion King, along come Elton John (yep, the Elton John) and Lyricist Tim Rice to hijack Giuseppe Verdi's immortal AIDA and magnificently mangle it -- by some weird alchemy converting it into a hit musical.

Broadway's new bauble sparkles, surprises, and beguiles. The set designer was a genius -- so many eyepopping backgrounds, stage props and computer-enhanced eye-wonders, one seductive exploitation of light and color after another: from this standpoint alone, the Hyperion theatrical is a visual delight. The dialogue is fast, and poignant. For the first time, most theater-goers and opera buffs can get to understand the AIDA story, set in Egypt with Nubian slaves, captured as trophies of war, in chains and dreaming of freedom and home (a parallel of Moses' lament, "set my people free").

And the tragic but deathless love shines again between the Egyptian general, the triumphant "Radames" and the Nubian princess taken into slavery, "Aida", and the double-crossed but touchingly forgiving Egyptian Princess, "Amneris."

The hitch is that the great Italian composer, Verdi, would never have recognized his own opus. Elton John took it, shook it up, rewrote it -- and dumped Verdi. (Luckily, the revered Master is long dead, and can't rush to the courtroom to sue.) In the end, the name and the plot may have been . . . well "plagiarized" -- but the music is pure -- or impure? -- Elton, and the lyrics are a seductive and even more eloquent Tim Rice at his very best. "AIDA" demonstrates, even though another near-immortal, Andrew Lloyd Webber, recently flopped, that for others, like Rice, there can be "life after success."

Elton John even slipped an eccentric fashion show into the musical, featuring sphinxes, Egyptian mummy-masks, pyramid-theme hats, and funky, fluorescent, transparent costumes that fail to conceal the buxom beauties inside -- but what the heck. Even that torrent of genius can digress, and you can still forgive him (it was never so eye-catching along the Nile, even circa-Cleopatra).

And the voice which enraptures is surely that of Heather Headley, that dusky lovely stolen from The Lion King. Headley enthralls. The former Northwestern University coed has taken cynical Broadway by storm, with her matchless soprano and her graceful moves. (Certainly, the cliché applies: A star is born).

"Special thanks to my Mommy, and to God for His many blessings," Heather told interviewers after her first performance, "especially this one!" God didn't mind, I'm sure, that she put Mommy ahead of Him.

As for Sherie René Scott, who played "Amneris," she almost -- but only almost -- held her own as the unfortunately spurned Egyptian princess. Next to Headley, she evoked the most applause in the standing ovation that followed. She was a princess, indeed.

Adam Pascal as General "Radames," although I hate to be critical, was a bit of a disappointment. He was handsome, broad-shouldered and well-muscled. However, his pitch was a wee too high -- and girlish. In fact, one suspects. This hero's movements were a mite too . . . tender. Get me a he-man anyday, but no moustache necessary. In his dazzling costumes, alack, "Radames" pranced instead of striding, like a cross-dresser.

But AIDA is not to be missed. It soars. It keens. It thunders. It's more than just Broadway and soap-opera. Shorn of the digressions and kinky frills, it may someday shine up there among the brightest in the operative firmament. It is an echo of our times. After all, that's what makes -- after the passage of many years -- a classic.

Your frustration will be at the box-office. AIDA is sold out for weeks -- the word has gone around. The concierge, in his clever way, can get you tickets at "premium prices." (Did somebody say scalper's prices? On Broadway, with millions scrambling for seats at the "hits," it's legit).

When all is said and done, though, the most exciting theater can be found for free on the streets and sidewalks of New York -- Eastside, Westside. My home town still stinks, but it's fascinatingly the bad odor of striving humanity that you recognize.