Joyful Tones

As a third grader in St. Theresa’s College in Quezon City, Camille Lopez amazed and baffled her teachers–she knew the opera "La Traviata" by heart and could sing all the roles without missing a note. "I would listen to the record every morning before going to school," she recalls.

Camille belongs to a family of singers; she has two sisters who are both sopranos and with whom, as teen-agers, she used to sing in a church choir called The Seedlings. Her mother is a soprano, pianist and choral conductor while her father is, in her own words, a "hobby" baritone singer. "My parents were members of the Opera Chorus of the Philippines and we would accompany them on rehearsals. When children were needed in the production, we would join in."

According to Camille, her parents chose the name because they first met when they joined a production of "La Traviata", the Verdi opera inspired by the Alexandre Dumas novel "Las Dame aux Camelias" or "Camille", the story of a French courtesan purified and morally reformed by the passion of love.

Camille began studying voice with the late Maestra Isang Tapales. But she was first a piano student, all the way until college before she shifted to voice at the UP College of Music where she completed her vocal studies under Prof. Fides Cuyugan Asensio.

In 1995, she was awarded a scholarship at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts where she studied under Kevin Miller and earned her degree in Opera Studies. In 1996, she auditioned and won acceptance into the Konservatorium der Stadt Wein in Vienna. Camille says that at age 11, she knew that the voice, rather than the piano, was her real instrument. "I didn’t enjoy the piano as much as singing which, to me, became a real outlet for expression. I already knew that I couldn’t sit at the piano for ten hours a day. You had to learn a million notes before you could express yourself!"

Lopez has been living in Austria for the past six years doing two things: studying voice, first as a student enrolled in the Konservatorium der Stadt Wein under Prof. Marija Sklad-Sauer and later as a private student of American teacher Julia Conwell, and working as consular assistant in the Philippine embassy in Vienna. It is a day job she eventually hopes to give up for a singing job.

"Pursuing a career in music means sacrificing security," she admits. "Perhaps I feel that I’m not ready yet and that’s precisely why I have a day job. But now, I feel competent…. I want to make singing my source of livelihood and make it my day job which it should really be."

She’s not yet in the mainstream of the classical music industry, she reveals. "I’m considered a young dramatic soprano. I’m not a real high voice," Camille explains. "The music that I sing is generally lower. I’m a soprano with a low note or a mezzo soprano with a high note."

Just what is a dramatic soprano? The Baltimore Opera Study Guide describes the dramatic soprano voice as of huge sound and projection, that can sing roles requiring dramatic and heroic involvement. "While the dramatic soprano sings mostly German repertoire (Brunhilde, Elektra, Senta) she also can successfully sing Italian roles, such as Turandot, La Gioconda and Lady Macbeth.

Camille has sung in numerous productions, concerts and recitals in the Philippines and abroad. Her stage roles is diverse, from Ahrens and Flaherty’s Once on This Island to Sondheim’s Into the Woods to Britten’s The Turn of the Screw; from Puccini’s La Boheme (Mimi) to Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro (Countess) to Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier (Marschallin).

With the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Camille has sung Bruckner’s Mass in C Minor, Vivaldi’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Requiem and Verdi’s Messa Da Requiem. In Vienna, she was part of the Schoenberg Chorus, a well-known choral group in Austria, starting out as chorus and later singled out to do solo pieces such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and several avant garde pieces.

Camille is now in Manila to perform in the fourth and final concert of the 2002 Filipino Artists Series on November 26, 7:30 p.m. at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater). With long-time friend Najib Ismail as assisting pianist, Lopez will be rendering a delightful program of art songs and arias, and kundimans by Lucio San Pedro, Constancio de Guzman and Nicanor Abelardo.

The repertoire for the concert, reveals Camille, was chosen basically by Ismail. "I’m so glad to be performing with Najib Ismail," she says. "Najib is a great accompanist. He is one of my best friends. We spent one whole afternoon–talagang namaos ako–trying to get the feel of the songs and we ended up with his initial suggestions anyway. I’m so excited about this concert because I like the songs. I want this to be a joyful experience not just for me but for the audience as well."

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For ticket information, call the CCP Marketing Dept. at 832-3681.