Abstract
This chapter investigates the Manila cultural soundscape in the middle of the nineteenth century a time during which European music theatre companies continued to arrive in Southeast Asia. The pattern of cultural consumption intensified in Manila and neighbouring cities, as the region was further integrated in the global theatre and music network—driven by the transcontinental steamship passages accelerated by the new Suez Canal route. Manila became an important cultural nexus and destination of travelling theatre and music companies that found an avid market for season subscription tickets, and an already modernising theatre infrastructure. In just over a decade Manila developed home-grown locally organised opera and zarzuela companies.
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Notes
- 1.
Nicanor G. Tiongson, “The Philippine Komedya: History, Indigenizaiton, Revitalization,” The Philippine Humanities Review 11/12 (2010): 18.
- 2.
Ibid., 16.
- 3.
Andres Bonifacio and Macario Sakay who were founders of the Philippine Revolution against Spain established El Teatro Porvenir [Theatre of the Future] staging komedyas. See: Teodoro A. Agoncillo , History of the Filipino People (Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing Co., 1990, c. 1977), 88.
Philippine historian and biographer of Andres Bonifactio, Teodoro Agoncillo opines that Bonifacio’s revolutionary ideas was strongly influenced by his work in the theatre reforming the komedya as an artistic expression subverting the Spanish colonial government.
- 4.
William H. Scott, Barangay. Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society, c. 1994 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994).
- 5.
See: Damon Lawrence Woods, Tomas Pinpin and “Librong Pagaaralan Nang Manga Tagalog Nang Uicang Castila”: Tagalog Literacy and Survival in Early Spanish Philippines (Los Angeles: U of California Los Angeles Press, 1995).
- 6.
Linda Barwick, “The Filipino Komedya and the Italian Maggio: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Related Genres of Popular Music Theatre,” in In Masks of Time: Drama and Its Contexts, ed. Anthony M. Gibbs (Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1994), 75.
- 7.
Former Filipino action-film star Joseph Estrada charmed the masses for portraying working-class characters delivering memorable metaphorical speeches before and after hand-combat with archetypal villains. His popularity in this film genre is believed to have won him the Philippine presidency in 1998.
- 8.
Ambeth R. Ocampo , 101 Stories on the Philippine Revolution (Pasig: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2009); The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, “The Philippine National Anthem,” Balanghay, no. 3 (2012): 3.
- 9.
Cristina Laconico Buenaventura, The Theater in Manila 1846–1946, Second Ed (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2010), 48.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Ibid., 49.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
William Summers, Repairing the Fractured Mirror: A Chronicle and Source Book Devoted to the Performing Arts in Manila, 1848–1898, forthcoming.
- 16.
Benito J Legarda, After the Galleons: Foreign Trade, Economic Change & Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century Philippines, 1st ed. (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press in cooperation with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002), 320–325.
- 17.
The Straits Times (25 February 1846), 2.
- 18.
Cohen, Matthew Isaac, Komedie Stamboel : Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891–1903 (Ohio University Press, 2006), 36.
- 19.
Raymundo C Bañas , Filipino Music and Theater (Quezon City: Manlapaz Publishing Co., 1969), 51.
- 20.
Ibid., quoted originally from The Philippine Herald. 24 January 1922.
- 21.
Carlos C. Grant, History of the Philippine Church (Manila: The Philippine Revolutionary Press, 2011), 17.
- 22.
Ibid., 22.
- 23.
In El Comercio, 15 April 1882 for example, an article El Teatro discoursed on the art of theatre, in which Chinese theatre was also defended.
- 24.
Oscar Campos y Soler, a pianist and composer trained in Italy under the masters Theodore Bohler and Guiseppe Mercadante. He was a music teacher and author of scholarly books on music in Madrid before he moved to Manila to become an organist at Manila Cathedral . In Manila he also served at the Colegio de Niños Tiples, and published Manual de Ortología Francesa in 1882. See: Frederick Fox, “Philippine Vocational Education: 1860–1898” 24, no. 3 (1976): 266; “Oscar Camps Y Soler,” Recuperación Del Patrimonio Cultural de Adra, 2008.
- 25.
Summers, Repairing the Fractured Mirror: A Chronicle and Source Book Devoted to the Performing Arts in Manila, 1848–1898.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Poonpit Amattayakul, “มหาอปรากร ในสมยรชกาลท 6,” in พระบาทสมเดจพระมงกฎเกลาเจาอยหวกบการดนตร: เฉลมพระเกยรตในวโรกาสครบรอบรอยปบรมราชาภเษกสมโภช (Bangkok, 2011), 134. See also: Straits Times (Singapore, 3 June 1890), 1; Yamomo, MeLê. “Global Currents, Musical Streams: European Opera in Colonial Southeast Asia,” Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film 44, no. 1 (2017).
- 28.
Ibid., 135.
- 29.
Ibid., 134.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Ibid., 135.
- 32.
See: Adriana Lo Faro, La Marcia Dell’elefante Bianco: 1911, Da Torino a Bangkok (Turin: Ananke, 2006).
- 33.
Amattayakul, “มหาอปรากร ในสมยรชกาลท 6,” 136.
- 34.
Mattani Mojdara Rutnin, Dance, Drama, and Theatre in Thailand: The Process of Development and Modernization (Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 1996), 157.
- 35.
Ibid., 276.
- 36.
Joseph Earle Stevens, Yesterdays in the Philippines: An Ex-Resident of Manila (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), 30.
- 37.
Ibid., 34–36.
- 38.
Data on the arrival of the first European opera companies in Manila are vague. Secondary sources such as Wenceslao Emilio Retana, Noticias Histórico-Bibliográficas de El Teatro En Filipinas Desde Sus Origínes Hasta 1898 (Madrid: Librería de V. Suárez, 1909) only mention a certain French operetta company that rented a small theatre in Quiapo in the 1860s.(p. 88) In writing this cultural history, which is the project of my dissertation, I needed to cross-reference archival data from neighbouring cities of Singapore , Batavia , and Hanoi to map out the global movements of these early translocal companies.
- 39.
Ibid., 83.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
The record of this company appears on a litigation file against Don Federico Stringer by the actors of the Compañia de la Opera for breach of contract. See NAP: Spanish Manila (1841–1897) Bundle 41/Card: 8357-8 (Binondo, 13 October 1868).
- 43.
William John Summers , “Forty-Eight Nights at the Opera: La Compañía Lirica Francesa in Manila in 1865,” in Qui Musicam in Se Habet Studies in Honor of Alejandro Enrique Planchart, ed. Anna Zayaruznaya, Bonnie J. Blackburn, and Stanley Boorman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 322.
- 44.
El Comercio. Manila: January–May 1871.
- 45.
In The Straits Times, 15 August 1863, the French company led by Alfred M. Maugard was referred to as the “The Batavia Opera Company”; In Straits Times Overland Journal, April–May 1869, the Italian Opera company led by M. Pompei was referred to as “The Royal Batavia Opera Company.”
- 46.
Ma Patricia Brillantes-Silvestre, “Music and History in the Manila of Marcelo Adonay,” in Music and History in the Manila of Marcelo Adonay, ed. Elena Rivera Mirano (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2009), 53–88; Bañas, Filipino Music and Theater.
- 47.
Ibid., 93.
- 48.
Artistico-Musical, Union, ‘Reglamento De La Sociedad De Conciertos’, 1885.
- 49.
See: Straits Times Overland Journal (20 May 1869), 2.
- 50.
Retana, Noticias Histórico-Bibliográficas de El Teatro En Filipinas Desde Sus Origínes Hasta 1898, 155–156.
- 51.
Genesis C. Rivera, “Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” in Manila: Selected Papers of the 18th Annual Manila Studies Conference August 23–24, 2009, ed. Lorelei D C Viana (Quezon City: Manila Studies Association, Inc., 2010), 43.
- 52.
E. Arsenio Manuel, “Ladislao Bonus,” in Dictionary of Philippine Biography, vol. 2 (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1970), 57. Also: Manuel Artigas y Cuerva. Galena de Filipinos llustres, vol. 2. (1918), 58.
- 53.
A review of the performance of Linda de Chamounix which appeared on El Comercio on 1 Decmber 1887 is probably the first time that Pandacan was compared to Milan on print. The nickname has stayed on, and has even been used in the nationalist rhetoric as it appeared on 14 January 1913 in El Renacimiento (The organ of the nationalist party during the US occupation).
- 54.
E. Arsenio Manuel, Dictionary of Philippine Biographies, vol. 2 (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1970), 6.
- 55.
E. Arsenio Manuel, “Ladislao Bonus.”
- 56.
Retana, Noticias Histórico-Bibliográficas de El Teatro En Filipinas Desde Sus Origínes Hasta 1898, 98.
- 57.
Nicanor G. Tiongson, “A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879–2009),” The Philippine Humanities Review 11/12 (2010): 152.
- 58.
Ibid., 117–120.
- 59.
Ibid., 152.
- 60.
Ibid., 152–153. See also: Doreen G. Fernandez, The Iloilo Zarzuela:1903–1930 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1977); Resil Mojares, “Introduksiyon Sa Modernong Teatrong Cebuano,” in Dulaang Cebuano, trans. Don Pagusara (Quezon City, 1997), xii–xxv; Lilia F. Realubit, “The Bicol Dramatic Tradition,” Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review 41, no. 1–2 (1976); Asucena G. Uranza, “Introduction. In An Matamiagnon Nga Agom (Ang Pabayang Asawa), Jose Tormo Figueroa,” Far Eastern University Journal 16, no. 4 (1972): 313–318.
- 61.
Doreen G Fernandez, “Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation,” Philippine Studies 41, no. 3 (1993): 323.
- 62.
José Rizal, The Reign of Greed: A Complete English Version of El Filibusterismo from the Spanish of José Rizal, trans. Charles Derbyshire (Manila: Philippine Education Company, 1912).
- 63.
Ma. Luisa T. Camagay, Kasaysayang Panlipunan Ng Maynila 1765–1898 (Quezon City: Maria Luisa T. Camagay, 1992), 135.
- 64.
See: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinctions. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste., trans. Richard Nice (Harvard University Press, 1984).
- 65.
See: Heidegger, Martin, “The Age of the World Picture,” in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, ed. and trans. William Lovitt (Harper Torchbooks, 1939), 115–154.
- 66.
See: Karsten Harries, “World-Picture and World-Theatre: Wonder, Vision,” in Collection, Laboratory, Theatre, ed. Helmar Schramm (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005).
- 67.
Ibid.
- 68.
James H. Johnson, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 92.
- 69.
See: Victor Turner, “Social Drama and Ritual Metaphors,” in Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (London: Cornell University Press, 1974).
- 70.
Mario Roger Quijano Axle, “Tonight: Zarzuela at 8 O’clock (If the Weather Allows It) (Zarzuela Scenes in Manila Between 1852 and 1898),” Philippine Humanities Review 11–12 (2009): 411.
- 71.
La Oceania Española 6 June 1882; quoted and translated to English by: Mario Roger Quijano Axle, Ibid., 410.
- 72.
The article further announces:
N. Ratia
OTRA:— El Beneficiado suplica encarecidamente á la concurrencia que no silbe.
OTRA:— Los que vayan para oir la funcion desde la calle pagarán solamente una peseta, pero siendo oyentes en carruage, media entrada.
OTRA:— En la taquilla se admita toda clase de monedas, ménos los ochavos morunos y los perros grandes ó chicos.
NOTA: — Si alguna dé las personas, que sean honradas asistiendo á mi beneficio, quiere dar algo mas de los precios señalados como mínimum, y a sea en metálico ó en especies, puede en el caso primero hacerlo al interesado directamente, y en el segundo al en cargado de la taquilla.
Precios de las localidades.
Asientos de á pié............. Gratis.
Entrada general.................. 2 Reales.
Bancos corridos .................. 4 id.
Butacas ................................. 4 pesetas,
Para los que tomen asiento de á pié como tienen yá aquel gratis, pagarán solamente por entrar... 4 pesetas.
Palcos á escojer ya sean plateas ó principales,
cada uno............................. 5 pesos.
Zarzuela que si bien se ha representado en el Filipino, algunas veces, solo dos han sido las que el inteligente público de Tondo la ha visto y siempre ha sido aplaudida, razones por las cuales se pone en mi beneficio.
Esta zarzuela en dos actos y tiros. no me corresponde á mi juzgarla porque en re los segundos y el susto que paso cuando salgo vestido de Niña en el 2.0 acto viéndome ‘rodeada’ de aquellos ocho capres llamados austríacos, no han dejado que pueda apreciar el mérito de la obra, pero supongo debe agradar, por cuanto desde el palco escénico veo al público batiendo las palmas y rindose, señal segura de qua están satisfechos.
- 73.
Patricia Shand, “The Music of the Environment,” in The Canadian Music Educator, ed. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, vol. 15 (New York: Continuum, 1974), 35–36.
- 74.
Ibid., 36.
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yamomo, m. (2018). Chapter 3 De Todo un Poco: Cultural Consumption in Modern Global Manila, 1848–1898. In: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869-1946. Transnational Theatre Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69176-3_4
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