Beware, behold — the Witches are here!

I was prompted to rise from my seat, clap heartily and shout “Bravo!” after Jemma Rix, who plays the role of the green wicked witch Elphaba, performed the song Defying Gravity from the Broadway musical Wicked during a press launch on Wednesday at the Diamond Hotel.

When Jemma Rix was joined on stage by Suzie Mathers, who plays the good witch Glinda, to sing the musical’s other most famous song For Good, the select audience clapped thunderously long before the two artists could take a bow. The two witches owned the audience that moment. They put them on a wicked spell. From the stage, the Witches of Oz watched their captives go on frenzy.

That moment, I thought, Manila is all geared up to be the happy recipient of some potent spell when Wicked opens on Jan. 22, 2014 at the CCP Main Theater.

And if the speed of ticket sales will be the magic wand that will determine its success, Wicked can be assured that it will fly high in its strictly limited season at the CCP.

“Manila is all set to get ‘wicked.’ There was an overwhelming reception to Wicked on the first day it started to sell tickets last Thursday,” Concertus Manila executive producer Bambi Verzo told me last Friday.

An insider told me that when ticketworld.com.ph started selling tickets at 10 a.m. of Thursday, bookings seemed to go in a trance. Tickets flew so quickly like the speeding broomstick of Elphaba! Kids even called their parents from school asking their folk to secure them tickets online. Many grown-ups I know are starting to save their hard-earned money just so they can buy tickets for their whole family.

Concertus Manila co-produced the Philippine-run Wicked with Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, David Atkins Enterprises, 105.9 Radio High, in association with Wicked Worldwide.

Bambi added that there would be exclusive and discounted ticket pre-selling for Visa cardholders and Smart Infinity subscribers from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15. Smart Infinity and Visa are the major presenters of Wicked in Manila.

“I’m just excited about it. Everybody is excited about Wicked,” Smart Infinity head Julie Carceller told me during the launch. If it’s any succor to guarantee Wicked’s success in Manila, the telecom company is giving away two complimentary VIP orchestra tickets to new subscribers until Nov. 30.

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Wicked is a story of a friendship that is found, lost and found again between two witches in the Land of Oz, long before Dorothy dropped in this magical landia. Elphaba, born with emerald green skin, is “smart, fiery and misunderstood.” She becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West. On the other hand, Glinda the Good is the other witch endowed with beauty. She is “ambitious and popular.” (Talk about being popular, Suzie Mathers also sang another Wicked song titled Popular at the launch. Filipino musical aficionados will always remember Suzie as the actor who portrayed Sophie in the Philippine-run Mamma Mia! in 2012.)

Both Jemma Rix and Suzie Mathers are excited to play witches before the Filipino audience.

Jemma, born and raised on the Central Coast of New South Wales in Australia, has “defied gravity,” so to speak with her more than 800 shows essaying her role as Elphaba since 2008. She has shown her prowess in theatrical witchcraft to audiences in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and Osaka (where she was required to perform parts of the musical in Japanese).

Suzie, who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised in Perth, Australia, is simply delighted that after 300 performances in Singapore and Korea, she is returning to the role of Glinda in Manila. She’s confident of bringing the magic of Oz to new audiences in the Philippines and around the world.

The two lead actors were joined by David Young, musical director, who played the piano at the press launch of Stephan Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s smash hit musical in Manila.

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Wicked, recipient of 50 major awards including a Grammy Award and three Tony Awards, is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Ever since it opened on Broadway in October 2003 and was performed around the world, the musical has raked in a cumulative gross of over $3 billion.

James Cundall, CEO of Lunchbox Theatrical Productions Limited, told the press at the Diamond Hotel that Wicked, since it premiered at the Gershwin Theater on Broadway almost 10 years ago, has been seen by 37 million people worldwide.

“It’s wickedly huge! It is the most complicated mega musical of our generation,” Cundall told the audience, while singling out CCP president Raul Sunico, who was seated on the table in front of him as he delivered his welcome remarks.

“I always ‘apologize’ to CCP even before any Lunchbox production (Mamma Mia! and The Phantom of the Opera) is brought to Manila because of the huge set we bring,” Cundall added in between giggles. “For the Wicked production, we’re bringing in 23 container vans (of costumes and props) and we will prepare the set at CCP for three weeks.”

Well, to bring the fantastic world of Oz to the Filipino audience, the production will need more than 200 costumes!

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Touted as Broadway’s biggest blockbuster and the defining musical of the decade, according to The New York Times, Wicked promises to take its audience in a magical ride that is filled with “glitz, glamour and spellbinding special effects.”

Beneath the veneer of its spectacle, the musical is set to rekindle the magic of love that is called friendship. Now, can you resist that gratifying spell that Wicked will cast on you?

If you get wickedly excited about it, I can’t blame you.

(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)