By ELIZABETH LOLARGA
LISTENING to a mishmash of operatic arias and Broadway hits, as though an iPod shuffle was being executed as a “sensurround” experience, is a lovely way to spend an evening.
It turns lovelier because this one happened on a Monday, unexpectedly pleasantly jump-starting a week of hard work.
When visiting Hong Kong baritone Wayne Yeh and the Philippines’ Lissa Romero de Guia, with dependable piano accompanist Mary Anne Espina, engaged in a mock battle called “Opera vs. Broadway,” it was in the name of philanthropy. EDSA Shangri-La Hotel offered its capacious Isla Ballroom rent-free for this benefit concert for Typhoon Sendong survivors.
Yeh and de Guia are volunteers of the Art of Living Foundation, a nongovernment organization (NGO) that continues to give trauma relief to adult and child survivors of the disaster in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities. The foundation has 145 chapters worldwide with the Philippine chapter involved in helping rehabilitate Bilibid prison inmates and survivors of super-typhoons.
Denise Celdran, the foundation’s breath works instructor, said what sets this NGO’s work apart is its focus on removing stress and negative emotions through simple breathing, sound meditation techniques and yoga stretches. An audio-visual presentation before the concert showed how the survivors became calm and more optimistic after they learned these exercises in the tent cities or basketball courts.
She added that these exercises put smiles back on people’s faces and peace in their minds, enabling them to function better and relish donated food, clothes and temporary shelter. Celdran pointed out how many thousands more need to be reached and empowered.
Thus, what de Guia called “a ping pong between opera and Broadway” was thought up to raise more funds for volunteers who will help restart other lives.
A sidelight was a silent auction for the same cause featuring works donated by these visual artists: Tosha and Gus Albor, Wesley Valenzuela, Stephanie Lopez, Felix Bacolor, Kidlat and Kabunyan de Guia, Oliver Olivete and Marisa Romero.
Observing how people get mired in past traumas and worry unnecessarily about the future, Celdran said the foundation teaches people “to be in the present, to be in the moment” so they could them live “artfully, gracefully, peacefully.”
She said these are possible by learning how to manage the mind, emotions, stored memories, intellect that passes judgment, ego that expresses and processes bad memories. This management of all layers of experience, she said, leads to a self that can contribute to improving society.
Lanky baritone Yeh, whose credits include singing as a lad before Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and appearing in Opera Hong Kong’s productions of Turandot, Mozart’s Requiem, Carmen, among others, continues to train with voice coaches Rita Patane and Pietro Spagnoli in Milan, Italy. That night, he entered from the back of the ballroom, clad in black tuxedo and pants, white bowtie and dark glasses. He held a cordless mic and warbled “Figaro” from The Barber of Seville while shaking hands with some members of the audience.
The rest of the evening he alternated use of the center stage with de Guia. Her theater experience includes being in the original German cast of Miss Saigon in Stuttgart, the Narrator in the original German cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (the first Filipina to play that role on the international stage), and playing Gigi in Miss Saigon, United Kingdom tour.
Semi-retired from theater after going into writing, she showed that she still had “it,” a wide vocal range. She moved from alto in South Pacific’s “Bali Hai” to middle range and to a belter of a soprano in “Home” from The Wiz.
She displayed her acting chops without a costume change. In her black and gray, long dress with a panuelo top, she was a flirt in “I Enjoy Being a Girl” from Flower Drum Song, a besotted Eliza in “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, a tragic Eponine in “On My Own” from Les Miserables, a noble woman in “Something Wonderful”, a wistful illicit lover in the medley “I Have Dreamed” and “We Kiss in a Shadow” from The King and I, which she reprised with Yeh in a duet after an earlier song on one-upmanship with him, Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” from Annie Get Your Gun.
The practice of breath work enabled de Guia to hold notes far longer than possible. This had a heavily partial audience cheering for her. Similarly, Yeh tried to match her with his solos of “Our Father,” “Ave Maria,” “You Raise Me Up” and encores (“O Sole Mio” and “Santa Lucia”).
Inspirational teacher Sri Ravi Shankar defined music as “sound in harmony, silence in clarity.” That night, silence and sound came together without clashing.