O. Ochanine’s magic wand /Logdat’s tremendous impact

After masterfully conducting the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra for three years in classic symphonies and concertos, Olivier Ochanine wielded the baton at the CCP main theater over symphonic music popularized by films and cartoons: John Williams’ Suite from Star Wars and Superman Theme, Klaus Badelt’s Pirates of the Caribbean and Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The above excerpts from Rossini’s William Tell Overture, Gounod’s Marche des Marionettes and Strauss tone poems conveyed the ethereal, martial, funereal, pastoral, idyllic, empyrean, romantic, passionate, and realistic; e.g. the galloping horses in Rossini’s Overture led listeners to feel they were themselves galloping astride the horses.

In the vividly descriptive musical delineations, Maestro Ochanine, converting his baton into a magic wand, “exploited” to the utmost the resources of the individual orchestra section members, thus rendering the works excitingly creative.

Baritone Joseleo Logdat, awardee in various national contests and grand prix winner in Japan’s 6th International competition, was presented in recital by the Sta. Isabel Conservatory and the Musika Klasika Filipino headed by executive director Atty. Diana F. Franco in the college auditorium.

The opening songs by Beethoven in German and by W. Ferrari in Italian were almost perfunctory as Logdat warmed up. In Mahler’s ensuing lieder — When My Sweetheart Is Married, I Went This Morning Over the Field, I  Have a Gleaming  Knife and The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved — the singer displayed force and power as a fiery and tempestuous fighter in I Have a Gleaming Knife,  breathing fire while astonishing listeners, and as a passionate lover expressing ardor in the exquisitely lyrical Two Blue Eyes.

In the arias from Verdi’s Don Carlo and Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, Logdat, his sonorous, resonant voice melding dramatic music with text, demonstrated even greater volume — indeed surprising for a relatively diminutive singer, his passion, magnetic voice and majestic manner producing a tremendous impact. For an encore, Logdat sang an aria from Verdi’s Macbeth.

The eminent Japanese Mitsuru Hirano, piano accompanist for the first two songs, was authoritative conductor of the youthful Manila Friendship Orchestra, a highly impressive work-in-progress which Logdat expressly organized for his recital.