Chapter 4 Staging Modernity, Auditioning the Republic: Music Theatre and the Soni of the Nation

yamomo, meLê

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69176-3_6

Chapter 4 Staging Modernity, Auditioning the Republic: Music Theatre and the Soni of the Nation

meLê yamomo⁵

Chapter
First Online: 21 July 2018

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Part of the book series: Transnational Theatre Histories ((TTH))

Abstract

This chapter follows modernity’s trajectory towards a consolidation of a national identity in the Philippines. The chapter traces two strains of musical nationalism as it was articulated in the first Asian republic. First, the case of the first Tagalog opera—Pedro Paterno and Ladislao Bonus’s Sangdugong Panaguinip—and the complex polyphonic interaction in the contestations of the Philippine autonomy. The second case study focuses on the indigenised vernacular sarswela. By paying attention to sarswela’s resounding commercial success across the archipelago during its golden age (1900–1930) this chapter examines how the sarswela formed an incipient national public sphere. The chapter argues how the sarswela formed the national ‘acousteme’ within the dynamics of Manila as a US colonial capital city and the incipient Philippine’s commercial urban capital.

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Notes

1.
Benedict Anderson, Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World, Philippine (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2004), 29.
2.
Ibid., 32.
3.
Arjun Appadurai , Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 29–30. Also see for example: Zialcita, F. N., Authentic Though Not Exotic: Essays on Filipino Identity (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005); Rosaldo, Renato, ‘Ideology, Place, and People Without Culture’, Cultural Anthropology, 3 (1988): 77–87.
4.
See: Romeo V. Cruz, “Nationalism in 19th Century Manila,” in MANILA: History, People and Culture: The Proceedings of the Manila Studies Conference, ed. Wilfrido V. Villacorta, Isagani R. Cruz , and Ma. Lourdes Brillantes (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1989), 59.
5.
Cruz notes that the traditional interpretation of the history of Philippine nationalism starts with a ‘superimposed definition that is separate from our experience, allowing readers much liberty to make their own connection between the intellectual construct and the experience’. But as he points out, the consequence of this history ‘was fragmentary exposition that started with an independent and separate definition and a layered causation using the factor-analysis similar to digging tunnels with no exit’, Ibid.
6.
Ibid., 60–61.
7.
See: Doreen G. Fernandez, “The ‘Seditious Plays,’” in Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theatre History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 95–103.
8.
E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 (New York: Vintage Books, 1989).
9.
Paul A. Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons: Race and Rule Between the British and U.S. Empires, 1880–1910,” in The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives, ed. Julian Go and Anne L. Forster (Manila: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2005), 43–91.
10.
Ibid.
11.
See: Ramon Pagayon Santos , “The UP Conservatory of Music: Nesting Ideologies of Nationalism in a Filipino Music,” in Tunugan: Four Essays on Filipino Music (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2005), 179–194; Christi -Anne Salazar Castro, “Chapter 1. Composing for an Incipient Nation,” in Musical Renderings of the Philippine Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 23–57.
12.
Ambeth R. Ocampo , 101 Stories on the Philippine Revolution (Pasig: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2009), 45. ‘Magdalo’ was Aguinaldo’s nom de guerre, and it was the name of the branch of the revolutionary army of the Katipunan.
13.
As a topic of popular musicology, a webpage which places Marcha Nacional side by side its other musical lineage can be viewed and listened to here: https://soundcloud.com/govph/philippine-national-anthem
14.
Ibid., 46; The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, “The Philippine National Anthem,” Balanghay, no. 3 (2012): 3.
15.
Philippine historian Teodoro Agoncillo branded Paterno the principal traitor of the Philippine revolution saying:

There was in him a strange blending of the dreamer and the man of practical affairs, of the poet and the businessman. As a poet, he dreamt of the Philippines as an Olympus where little gods, brown gods and white gods, playfully led happy and quiet lives. As a businessman, he envisaged his country as the stepping stone to his lofty ambition—that of a bemedalled Maguinoo, a Nobleman, to whom the brown gods and the white gods owed their peace and contentment.

Resil B Mojares, Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de Los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2006), 36.
16.
Ibid., 4.
For related literature in the re-examination of Pedro Paterno’s role in Philippine national history see also: Portia L. Reyes, “A ‘treasonous’ History of Filipino Historiography: The Life and Times of Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911,” South East Asia Research 32, no. 1993 (2006): 87–121.
17.
Mojares , Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de Los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge, 4.
18.
Reyes , “A ‘treasonous’ History of Filipino Historiography: The Life and Times of Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911,” 90.
19.
The general consensus in Philippine music history is that Sangdugong Panaguinip is considered the first Tagalog opera. This is clearly stated in the title of Genesis C. Rivera’s paper “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), which serves as an important recent source on this topic.
Others claim Rizal y los Dioses (1902) with libretto by Aurelio Tolentino and music by Simplicio Solis as the first Tagalog (and therefore the first opera written in a Philippine language). Writer and literary historian Jose Ma. Rivera listed the work as a ‘zarzuela in three acts’ in Mga manunulat sa wikang Tagalog (1939). Literary historian, Eufronio M. Alip on the other hand listed it as an opera in three acts with Tagalog verses in Tagalog Literature: a historico-critical study (1931). Rivera later agreed to this categorisation. See: E. Arsenio Manuel, “Ladislao Bonus,” in Dictionary of Philippine Biography, vol. 2 (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1970), 393.
The chronological historiography of Tagalog opera, however, is not the focus of this research. Rather, the focus here is on the historical details surrounding the premiere of Sangdugong Panaguinip in 1902.
20.
Rivera, “Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” 94.
21.
Ibid., 105.
22.
Ibid.; E. Arsenio Manuel. Dictionary of Philippine Biography, vol. 2 (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1970), 283–287.
23.
E. Arsenio Manuel, “Toribio Antillon,” in Dictionary of Philippine Biography, vol. 2 (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1970), 52.
24.
Raymundo C Bañas , “Opera in the Philippines,” in Pilipino Music and Theater (Quezon City: Manlapaz Publishing Co., 1969), 204.
25.
Rivera, “Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” 94.
26.
Fernando Jr. A Santiago , “Remembering Ladislao Bonus (1854–1908): The Father of Filipino Opera,” in Manila: Selected Papers of the 18th Annual Manila Studies Conference August 23–24, 2009, ed. Lorelei D C De Viana (Quezon City: Manila Studies Association, Inc., 2010), 79–80. Quoted from Hila , Antonio C. “Walter H. Loving and the Philippine Constabulary Band,” Unitas 77 (2004): 249–250.
27.
The 1889 decree pertaining to theatre required that all productions with the names of its artistic staff and crew were to be submitted to the local government. Posters of the performances were also required to be submitted to municipal government to be stamped with the Royal Seal. The surviving documents and posters are catalogued at the National Archive of the Philippines under Teatro Musica. I only found one document pertaining to a public performance of a German opera—a poster of the Lohengrin (SDS12425-S).
28.
Rivera, “Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” 101.
29.
Ibid., 100.
30.
See: Joseph Earle Stevens, Yesterdays in the Philippines: An Ex-Resident of Manila (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), 30.
31.
“Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” 105. Quoted from: El Progreso . 5 August 1902. Translated from the original: falta de unidad musica, al punto de que no descubre ningun motivo principal que la imprima caracter tipico … es tan varia, tan heterogenes que despues de oirla solo deja un recuerdo vago confuso.
32.
Manuel Artigas y Cuerva. Galena de Filipinos llustres, vol. 2. (1918), 451. Translated from the original:

Es una musica electrica, con rotundidades wagnerians a ratos y ratos con rcminiscencias de musica religiosa, saturada de scntimentalismo italiano y de voluptuosidad oriental. La marcha del juramento, verbigracia, es un numero en el que Bonus ha sabido aprovechar e felizmente de los elementos orquestales, y esto mismo peude decirse de la mayoría de los coros que tanto abundan en la obra. El baile de los espiritus y anitos es una melodía original, por lo rara, que ejecutan los fagotes al musono con golpes de timbal y platillo … Hay en la música trozos sentidos y párrafos intenseamente bellos y aires filipinos.
33.
Doreen G. Fernandez and Nicanor G. Tiongson, “Sangdugong Panaguinip,” in CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, vol. 6 (Manila: Cultural center of the Philippines, 1994), 235.
34.
Ibid., 97. Quoted from Sangdugong Panaguinip, Tagalog libretto, (1902) 26. My translation from original Tagalog text: “Ang orquesta’y tutugtog nang Himno Nacional nang E.U.[Estados Unidos] na sinasaliuan nang Marcha Filipina. Ang manga Filipino’y yayacap sa larauan nang Kalayaan na inihahandog nang E.U. nang America.”
35.
Irving , 2010, Colonial Counterpoint.
36.
Mojares , Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de Los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge, 32.
37.
Ibid.
38.
Ibid.
39.
The Manila Freedom, 28 August 1902.
40.
Rivera, “Sangdugong Panaguinip (1902): The First Tagalog Opera,” 97.
41.
See: Stuart Anderson, Race and Rapprochement: Anglo-Saxonism and Anglo-American Relations, 1895–1904 (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981); Kramer , “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons: Race and Rule Between the British and U.S. Empires, 1880–1910.”
42.
Mojares , Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de Los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge, 36.
43.
Nicanor G. Tiongson, “What Is Sarswela?,” in Pilipinas Circa 1907 (Quezon City: Philippine Educational Theatre Association, 1985); Doreen G. Fernandez, “Zarzuela to Sarswela,” in Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theatre History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 74–94.
44.
Celia Applegate , ‘How German Is It? Nationalism and the Idea of Serious Music in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Nineteenth-Century Music 21, no. 3 (1998): 288.
45.
Michael Cullinane, Ilustrado Politics: Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule, 1898–1908 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2003), 122–123.
46.
Ibid., 124.
47.
Nicanor G. Tiongson , “A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879–2009),” The Philippine Humanities Review 11/12 (2010): 153.
48.
Cristina Laconico Buenaventura , The Theater in Manila 1846–1946, 2nd ed. (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2010), 106.
49.
Ibid.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Tiongson , “A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879–2009),” 154.
52.
Ibid., 169.
53.
Hans Belting, “An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body,” in An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), 9–36; Hans Belting, “Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology,” Critical Inquiry 31, no. 2 (2005): 302–319.
54.
By ‘scenario’ here I refer to what performance studies scholar Diana Taylor refers to as culturally specific performative imaginaries, sets of possibilities, ways of conceiving conflict, crisis, or resolution that are activated by theatricality. See: Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003).
55.
See for example: Ira E. Chart, “Antonio Hurtado and the Development of the Zarzuela,” Hispania 24, no. 4 (1941): 430.
56.
Ramon P. Santos, “Musika Ng Zarzuela-Sarsuwela: Isang Pag-Aaral Sa Etimolodyi, Katangian at Kahalagahan Sa Isang Uri Ng Paghahayag-Damdaming Fillipino,” Philippine Humanities Review 11–12 (2009): 298.
57.
Ibid., 314–315.
58.
Reynaldo Clemeña Ileto , Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979).
59.
Santos , “Musika Ng Zarzuela-Sarsuwela: Isang Pag-Aaral Sa Etimolodyi, Katangian at Kahalagahan Sa Isang Uri Ng Paghahayag-Damdaming Fillipino,” 315.
60.
Felipe Jr. de Leon , “The Filipino’s Image in the ‘Kundiman,’” Malaya, June 28, 1990.
61.
Santos , “Musika Ng Zarzuela-Sarsuwela: Isang Pag-Aaral Sa Etimolodyi, Katangian at Kahalagahan Sa Isang Uri Ng Paghahayag-Damdaming Fillipino,” 316.
62.
Ibid., 315.
63.
See: James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, Yale Agrarian Studies Series (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009).

References

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Irving, D.R.M. 2010. Colonial Counterpoint: Music Early modern manila, 111–112. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Stevens, Joseph Earle. 1898. Yesterdays in the Philippines. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
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yamomo, m. (2018). Chapter 4 Staging Modernity, Auditioning the Republic: Music Theatre and the Soni of the Nation. 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_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69176-3_6
Published: 21 July 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69175-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69176-3
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