Fiesta! highlight: Las tres sopranos

There could not possibly have been a more charming and eloquent Phil-Spanish interaction than the concert titled Las Tres Sopranos. Staged at the RCBC auditorium, the evening of song brought to a close the performing arts presentations of the month-long Fiesta! under the auspices of the Spanish Embassy and the Instituto Cervantes.

In his welcome address, IC Director Javier Galvan proudly introduced the three sopranos – our own Josephine Roces-Chavez, Rachelle Gerodias and the Spanish Ana Luisa Espinosa.

Rizal himself would have been considerably impressed and gratified at Ms. Espinosa’s interpretation of his own Canto Patriotico de Maria Clara, this set to hauntingly lyrical music by Juan Hernandez. Many of us learned the verses at home or in school, but listening to them in song offered an entirely different – a profoundly moving – experience.

Utmost economy of movement made Ms. Espinosa’s every gesture count, and this was complemented by her poise, facial expression. (During long pauses she kept her eyes closed, thus turning audience attention to her elegant, commanding presence, to her delicate beauty, while deepening its visual pleasure.) Add the auditory one engendered by her subtly expressive nuances in articulation and phrasing. With her rich, superbly controlled voice, the sustained pianissimo lines would swell into tremendous fortissimos, then gracefully turn into exquisite pianissimos again.

The combination of superb technique and sensitive artistry was likewise to be admired in her rendition of El Barberillo de Lavapies by Francisco Barbieri and her three closing songs by E. Lecuona: Soy Razonable, Mi Vida Eres Tu and Dame de tus Rosas.

As might be deduced, the program consisted of popular, semi-classic selections in Spanish and Tagalog, with two operatic duets added – the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman, this sung by Ms. Espinosa and Mrs. Chavez, and Sull’aria from The Marriage of Figaro, this interpreted by Ms. Espinosa and Ms. Gerodias.

The pretty, perfectly proportioned Ms. Gerodias was in splendid form, and her compelling performance that night readily placed her among our top sopranos, young though she is. Her powerful and expressive voice is totally at her command, and the manner she manipulated it from soft to loud, or loud to soft, seemed nearly as overwhelming as that of Ms. Epinosa. How Ms. Gerodias’s slender frame and petite figure belied her vocal strength!

The audience, completely awed by her singular talent, heartily applauded her in Ang Maya by Jose Estella and the well-loved Estrellita by Manuel Ponce.

The winsome Mrs. Chavez opened the program with E. Granados’s Danza Espanola No. 15 and the familiar El Paño Morun from De Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas. Ms. Chavez's voice has grown deeper and darker, and her charming and engaging interpretations showed thorough familiarity with both the idiom and the character of the songs. However, she exhibited a tendency to gesticulate too much, particularly in Besame Mucho and A Mi Manera, the Spanish version of I Did It My Way.

Pianist Johnny Torres gave commendable assistance to the featured artists. He also took part in "Quintet", a breezy interlude offered by Sixto E. Roxas, guitarist; Zaldy Sarmiento, bass; Ruben Reyes, guitar; and Antonella F. Bernardo, percussion. Their number was rather long and tended to be tedious toward the end. Nevertheless, the Quintet was fantastic, its rhythms infectious, its energy propulsive.

Perhaps because Antonella is a tiny girl beating on those huge drums, she caught everybody’s eye – and ear.

In inclusion, the three sopranos sang the Spanish translation of Lloyd Weber’s Amigos Para Siempre (Friends Forever) which, like a warm embrace, just about sums up the basic message of Fiesta!