The burdens of a critic

The following talk  herewith condensed  was delivered before Bel-Air Village residents upon the invitation of Barangay Captain Constancia Q. Lichauco and Chairperson Romana G. Borromeo.

My subject, “The Burdens of a Critic,” will give you an insight into what it takes to be a critic in Manila. A critic shuttles from music to theater to dance for a single newspaper quite unlike in New York, London or Munich or in other major cities abroad where there is a critic for music, another for dance, a third for drama. Fortunately, I have a background in all the three disciplines but I cannot speak for other critics.

When I started writing reviews, there were not enough presentations in music, dance or theater on a professional level. Now, there is such a proliferation of excellent presentations in all the three disciplines that I have decided to devote myself mostly to musical events. However, there has always been a trend to synthesize and integrate the arts and, for the benefit of readers, critics should widen their background. For instance, in musicals like “Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat” or in “Miss Saigon,” the performers sing, dance and act. In Verdi’s Opera “Rigoletto”, performers are expected to sing, act, and dance. In Gounod’s Opera “Faust” there is a dance sequence, while performers sing and act. To properly evaluate such presentations, the critic must have a background in all the disciplines. The viewers, for their part, will enjoy the presentations as much as their background allows. The wider their background the more they will understand and appreciate the presentations.

For a more spectacular example of integration, in Peter Brooks’ production of Shakespeare’s “Mid-Summer’s Night Dream,” I witnessed in London actors literally turning into acrobats overnight: throughout the play, they kept balancing and swinging on trapezes, and woe to anyone who was not agile and athletic enough because Brooks required each player to turn to thoughts of possible disasters.

For less dangerous and more amusing moments, nothing will perhaps match the unsettling feeling that a Met tenor once gave me. If I looked up directly at him from my seat about eight feet below, his widely open mouth during a high C conjured the image of a cavern ready to swallow me!

At a post-concert dinner, a visiting German pianist disclosed to me that shortly before rendering his formidable program, he was on the verandah of his hotel room admiring the glorious Manila sunset. His subsequent playing so electrified the audience that he was convinced the view which had so thrilled him earlier, had spurred him to give the magnificent performance.

Now, in retrospect a thought occurs to me. Had the amiable pianist also rendered Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” he would have been the only pianist to claim that a moonlight had been inspired by a sunset.

Some incidents may not prove as inspiring as a lingering look at the Manila sunset. A woman pianist kept the audience waiting for an hour. Finally, a know-it-all surmised that the pianist’s made to-order shoes had failed to arrive on time. The concertist could have readily justified the considerable delay, she had merely wished to put her best foot forward — literally. Indeed, how could any pianist have done her best while pressing the pedal with an old shoe?

Proof-readers are often the bane of my existence. A proof-reader once turned the French-horn player into a French-born player. The proof-reader thought perhaps he would not be answerable to the Bureau of Immigration for changing a person’s nationality.

Another proof-reader turned the piano soloist into a panic soloist, having assumed that the pianist had panicked while performing. A third proof-reader turned a soprano’s debut into a soprano’s doubt. He must have doubted the success of the event.

At the recital of a French pianist in a convent school run by nuns, a French embassy official chased a skinny dog which had run up the stage just as the pianist was tackling the devilishly difficult Mephisto Waltz. Vividly recalling the image of that skinny dog, I thought of writing in my review this unsolicited advice to the nuns, “charity should go to the dogs.”

Personal impressions a performer might give a critic should not affect his objectivity. Why? Because he has to maintain his integrity and self-respect at all costs. A critic finds it harder to be objective when he reviews the performance of a Filipino. A critic may be having dinner with him at a party and reviewing his performance later. The artist and the critic may even be close friends. The critic still owes it to himself and his readers to maintain his integrity. If it is not possible for him to do so, I believe he should desist from writing about the performance altogether.

The sensitivity of Filipinos would be the subject of another discourse on the burdens of a critic.