Requiem for 'Dodo'

The author of “Requiem” is Diane Franco, eminent lawyer and executive director of Musika Klasika Filipino.

Edgardo “Dodo” Crisol, highly-acclaimed tenor and a shining star in Philippine opera and theatre, passed away May 6, 2011. He was 57.

Dodo appeared in over a hundred Manila productions of theatre, opera, oratorios, Broadway musicales, recitals, concerts, symphony solos, chamber music, zarzuelas. He also appeared in Asian theatre, Philippine traditional theatre, street and protest theatre and classical readers theatre.

He was the first Filipino to perform opera in Russia in Traviata debuting as Alfredo, at the World Music Festival (July 17-26, 1992). Ukrainian conductor Anatoly Cherpurnoi took note of Crisol’s vocal coloring and bravura which manifested a specifically Italianate school of singing. Cherpurnoi had expressed further surprise at Crisol’s technical dramatic mastery, granting that he had only a single rehearsal with orchestra and cast, leaving the final act unrehearsed for opening night. Galina Poroshina of the Russian Theatre Academy commended Crisol’s intense, heart-throbbing performance, placing him at par with Russian actors. “He transcends technique and mere vocalism,” enthused the Stanislavsky proponent.

For his success in Russia, he was invited by Lhagvyn Erdenbulgan of the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet of Mongolia, to perform as the Duke of Mantua in a Mongolian Festival production of Rigoletto. Poroshina likewise invited him to return to Moscow to sing Alfredo with the Russian Theatre Academy.

In 1988, Dodo was also the first Filipino to place in the prestigious worldwide Madame Butterfly Competitions held in Tokyo every ten years. He was one of six tenor semi-finalists out of 300 participants from Russia, Romania, Japan, New Zealand and the Phl. The competition was among 20 countries from Europe, Asia and America. In a contest dominated by Russia, with the exception of Japan, Crisol was the only Asian semi-finalist. The director of the Prague Music College said, “Crisol is excellent operatic material with international potential. One of the few who sing from the heart. Unfortunately, juries have to pit one good artist with another.

In 1983, Dodo and mezzo-soprano Josie Bailen apprenticed with Sarah Caldwell of the Boston Opera Company. He continued training with Raquel Adonaylo of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. His theatre mentors include Aida Forster of the NY Neighborhood Playhouse, Galina Poroshina of Moscow Art Theatre, Valentina Pasutinsky of the Bolshoi Opera, Rudolf Felner of the Boston Opera and British Maestro Vernon Mackie.

He was highly acclaimed by National Artist Leonor Orosa-Goquingco (Phil. STAR, July 18, 1988), thus: “Crisol may yet become our greatest Filipino tenor”, she enthused after Dodo’s recital at the Philamlife. “Simpatico, taller than most of our other tenors, gifted with a voice characterized by freshness, volume and pure tonal quality, intelligent and with a theatrical experience and expertise to stand him in good stead in his dramatic renderings . . . Crisol’s voice is more fluid, freer, more expansive, yet more disciplined. And his diction and enunciation are as near perfect as can be.

“Crisol evinced flashes of brilliance in the arias, i.e. Puccini’s “Che gellida manina,” Verdi’s lively “Questa O Quella,” Giordano’s “Come un bel di di Maggio. His high notes, in particular, were resonant and rotund, his crescendos well-structured.

“Gratifying, likewise were his interpretations of Peña’s “Iyo Kailan Pa Man,” and Santiago’s “Pakiusap.” His legatos in di Crescenzo’s “Rondine al Nido” were notable, and he sang Leoncavallo’s “Mattinata”  with flair and feeling. The audience clapped resoundingly at his impassioned interpretation.

“An ingratiating “Core Ingrato” (Cardillo) closed the program; with the audience vigorously demanding an encore, Crisol obliged with still another Neapolitan song “Torna a Sorrento.”

“Crisol hopes to make his way up through concertizing (as Gigli and Pavarotti did before him) even as he also concentrates on finishing his studies under Maestro Mackie,” concluded Orosa Goquingco.

Dodo first gained acclaim as Judas in the local premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar. Other memorable roles were Jason in Euripedes’ Medea, Catullus in Orff’s Catulli Carmina, Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Boheme, the Duke and Borsa in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca, Azdak in Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle, Lopahin in Chekov’s Cherry Orchard, Miguel in Menotti’s Saint of Bleeker Street, the Prodigal Son in Debussy’s L‘Enfant Prodigue, the Ghost in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Mauler in Brecht’s St. Joan of the Stockyards, Eisenstein in Straüss’ Die Fledermaus, Basilio in Mozart’s Le Notte di Figaro, the Impresario in Mozart’s Impresario, Monostatos in Mozart’s Die Zauberflaute, Cervantes in Man of La Mancha, Pozzo in Becket’s Waiting for Godot, Don Ramon in Ang Keri, Simoun and Gobernador in Fili I and Fili II and Bunraku Chanteur in Sakurahime. Dodo also premiered the role of Magellan in Tejero’s Lapu-Lapu.”

He was a founding member of the Opera Company of the Philippines and Artistic Director of Musika Klasika Filipino which aims to popularize classical music. Thus, Crisol undertook the Filipino translation of opera classics and musical theatre and sought to create original Filipino opera classics, e.g. La Loba Negra, which was produced by his mentor, Fides Asencio. Crisol also received training from baritone Aurelio Estanislao. He studied at the Ateneo for graduate studies in Philosophy, and at the UP as a Mass Communications major.

In his last years, aside from concertizing with Rachelle Gerodias, Elaine Lee, Jennifer Uy, Aileen Cura, Agnes Barredo, Alegria Ferrer, Cynthia Guico and La Diva Maestra Josie Bailen; baritone Lionel Guico and tenors Nolyn Cabahug, Lemuel de la Cruz and Jonathan Badon, Crisol also delivered lectures on music like “Shakespeare and the Musical Unconscious,” at Assumption College. He gave lecture-performance tracing the beginnings of opera, from Greek tragedies to the psalms and sonnets, the roving troubadours and Shakespeare and its evolution into Broadway shows and MTV. Crisol lectured as well as performed in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth.

In 2003, with Gerodias and De la Cruz, Dodo performed at Las Piñas Church for a hundred French members of Count Hubert D’ Aboville’s Clan. After Dodo sang Massenet’s “Ah Fuyez Douche Image! from Manon Lescaut, the French group commended him saying they seldom heard that aria sung in France and in the Philippines. It was sung so well by a Filipino.

Crisol was also into avant garde “musical deconstruction” of the Beatles’ vocal works.’ He and Guico produced a concert (2002) “Cool Duets” setting Beatles’ songs within the context of more ancient traditions such as Bel Canto.

Also a literary genius, only Crisol could mount such a performance. His was a life certainly well-lived. He so inspired his scholars to whom he generously shared his musical wisdom and technique. He was a loving and caring man, temperamental at times, but so devoted, loyal and true. At his funeral, Fides Asencio sang: “There was a boy, a very special boy . . .” touchingly. His close friends in opera rendered two nights of glorious music at the Della Strada Chapel. Young opera singers Lena Mckenzie, Krissan Manikan and Leo Logdat paid homage as well to a fallen idol, accompanied on the piano by Augusto Espino and Kobi Maceda. His 12-year old nephew, Jolo Crisol, delivered a very moving tribute. We were all lucky to have known such a talented genius. The opera world will be sadly bereft of so erudite and consummate an artist. May he continue to sing in the light and be embraced at last by infinite peace and love.