Thursday, October 10, 2019

MARIA Y MARTHA, the Opera


What is the purpose of putting up a play? An opera?   

It is to tell a story in musical form—and that is what Maria y Marta is all about. Their story is about how they had felt about the death of Lazarus, based on the account of John in the New Testament. Lazarus died and  had lain for four days when Jesus came and told  him to rise up and live again.
The play only uses the two women expressing their grief for one hour. And for one hour, the chimes, sets of which were distributed to the audience kept on ringing and ringing all throughout, so much so that we could only hear snippets of the words of the songs being sung.

When telling a story from the Bible, we expect that the writer would want the reader to appreciate Christianity afterwards, or see the value of Christ’s teachings. But reading the script which was printed in the souvenir program, nothing of that sort is given. Instead the lines delved on the pain of missing Lazarus, of feelings of hopelessness, and almost blaming Jesus for not coming earlier so that he could have prevented the death of Lazarus. 

What we gather here is that the writer is talking to the converted Christians. She does not intend to propagate the value of Christ’s teachings.

What I rue most is that, Jesus who is the major character did not appear at all; he was just symbolically presented as light. The lamp that was used was so bright that I had to cover my eyes as it was terribly blinding.

What about the music?
The music is what is called serial – “In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements.” Actually, almost  all of the songs sung were atonal in nature. They were rising high and low, here and there, without any key. One cannot say that the song being sung is in the key of C or E, rather they shot up here and there and everywhere. And that is the immediate sound of the songs. The notes seemingly arose from impulsive urges of the singers.

And so the play I think appears to be un-Christlike, meaning it does not show us who is Christ and why He should come at all to make Lazarus arise again. It is not appreciative of the lines in the scripts as the voices of the women were drowned by the constant clinging of the chimes. By the ay, it was a good thing that we were able to read the script afterwards.  

I think the play is more a presentation of the music, which served as background to the songs, and as links to the different segments  provided by The Ripieno Ensemble consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion instruments supposed to play in the background.

The movements in the play were very slow, almost slow motion all throughout. The faces of the actresses were slightly  shown as shadows  were the common features. 

I like the play of the shawls which covered the faces, the bodies and were raised to the light to reveal black and white lines.  

As this is a student production, I think that professors must examine the literature of the students presenting their works to the public. Also, a theatre consultant must be there to analyze if the play is audience-friendly. 

Unfortunately, the play barraged us with chimes clanging here and there (several distributed to the audience seated at  different parts of the theatre) thus making us fail to appreciate the import of the lines of the script.


Sopranos were Stefanie Quintin who sang very high notes, beautifully, and Pauline Arejola equally a good performer while Alexander John L. Villanueva was the Composer/Conductor. Libretto was written by Sofia Paderes and Gabo Tolentino was the director.

THE RIPIENO ENSEMBLE:
John Owen Castro, flute; Danelle Dionisio, clarinet; Marian Mayoga, violin; Joseph Emmanuel Hernandez, cello; and  Gabriel Paguirigan, piano. The play was shown at the Black Box on 9 October 2019.


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