by ISIAH RED MANILA STANDARD TODAY
We spent a whole afternoon talking with Fides Asensio, soprano and now librettis and lyricist of the musical Song of Joseph, along with composers Jaeannelle Bihag Roldan and Raymond Roldan, also with singers Jon Joven who plays Jesus, Arlynne Lupas Tecson, and Tricia Amper who will alternate as Mary.
We started with Fides.
Song of Joseph is your seventh music theater work.How do you feel about this latest “ baby”? A pop musical no less!
I was tapped by his fingers, I feel trapped, awed and overwhelmed! Joseph the foster father of Jesus is not exactly the central figure I would have chosen to write about in a story for a musical. I almost refused Joy Rago, our production manager and the person who tapped my shoulder. (It was no spiritual happening.) She informed me casually about it almost like a joke. “Your next libretto is about Joseph.” I had only a Christmas season acquaintanceship with Joseph —when my parents would lovingly take the resin statue out of a storage box and carefully put him beside Mary gazing into a crib lined with hay in which a tiny figure of a baby lay. I loved Mary and the baby but I was terrified of Joseph, it must have been the beard and all that hair.!
So how did you begin to work on your first musical?
I researched through four books on Joseph which actually didn’t help much to write a credible story line on a person who is never quoted as having said anything. In the books, Joseph is as silent (mute) as the resin figure I had seen every Christmas in the “belen” at home. A lot about him is speculatory and contradictory except for the fact that he was a carpenter, the spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus. A childhood friend of mine asked me to please not portray Joseph as an old man but young, virile and handsome. As soon as I “shaved” off Joseph’s beard and cut short his long flowing hair, Joseph the human man, handsome and macho emerged falling in love with a 15-year-old village girl named Maryland. “Song of Joseph,” the musical on Joseph’s love, life and death, took off on the Angel Gabriel’s wings.
We turned our attention to Jeannelle who, along with her husband Raymond, wrote the score.
Oh, you are the better half of the composer Raymond and I see you are also the other half of the composing duo. In your professional teamup, are you the better half?
Half and half, sir.
What strikes me is how you work in tandem—is this a case of the biblical Ruth telling her mother-in-law “where you go I go? (And you also sing together! A classical duo tenor and soprano)
Perhaps, yes. This is our first major work together as composers. It’s a real challenge for us. There are so many scenes and songs but this script is tailor-made for Raymond with all the references to the happenings in the biblical times.
Are you singing in the Song of Joseph? It must be easy composing music for yourselves. What are your roles?
I sing Elizabeth and Ester the Adulterer. Raymond sings Herod.
To Raymond, we asked:
Why do you say composing music for such a musical as Song of Joseph is a purging for you. What is there in your young life that you need to purge?
You see sir as a seminarian of the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary in Naga City, I was steeply trained in Gregorian Music and immersed in spiritual activities. After so much “sacred immersion,” I felt there was something I was missing of the life outside the seminary walls. I left the seminary, joined the University of the Philippines Concert Chorus, traveled the world, sang in Zarzuelas, opera, musical plays, joined National and International Vocal Competitions—practically the gamut of secular music. I even had a stint as a singing ring master in a touring circus in Malaysia. I have no regrets but I felt I had to “purge” some of that from my life and pick up my theme of singing and now composing all for the Glory of the Lord God !
You mean Song of Joseph is an Oratorio?
No. No. Song of Joseph is the ideal instrument for “purging.” It combines the humanness of Joseph in romantic love and his saintly virtues of faith and forgiveness.
In other words, Song of Joseph the musical has inspired you to work all for the glory of the Lord God Raymond. I thoroughly understand what you feel having been behind those seminary walls myself.
In the course of the conversation, we turned our attention to Arlynne, Jon Joven, and Tricia Amper who are playing the musical’s lead roles.
You have done a mixed bag of roles on stage operas, musicals and straight plays and have garnered warm critical and audience acceptance. Now you are essaying the role of Mary in the new musical Song of Joseph. What do you feel about the role?
Arlynne: Actually I have always been fond of working with Tita Fides and I welcome yet another chance of performing in her latest musical creation. I have a feeling, though, she has typecasted me (laughter) as Mary. I play a young vulnerable 15 years old much like my role as Angela in her Mayo Bisperas ng Liwanag Opera.
Yes you do look like a 15-year-old and virginal (ha! ha!). I think we will not go into that. There are two Marys and one Joseph. Why?
Arlynne: I think young singing actors like Jon Joven are hard to find. Because of the emotions invoked by the lyrics and musical style, the composer is constrained to bring the vocal line to the limit of the upper range and Jon, it seems, can go on and on to the next higher note everytime he sings the highest note in the musical. Actually this would not be too problematical if this work is in the opera genre.
Oh, you sound like a voice teacher.
Arlynne: Well, yes I am. I teach voice—classical or “bel Canto.” Singing the roles in Broadway Pop Musical style is an adjustment many classical singers now have to make if one’s goal as a singing actor is to keep singing on stage.
Reading your profile as a musical theater performer, I get the impression you have done several powerful major roles on the musical stage. Will you be infusing any of the characters you have played into the role of Joseph, foster father of Jesus in the new musical Song of Joseph? What is your take on the character of Joseph?
Jon: I have always enjoyed exploring something that is beyond everything I know, immersing myself in that which is unknown in order to know and taking the role of Joseph is just that. Joseph is never quoted in Biblical literature, very little is written about him, hard, indisputable facts, but as a human being and a father to a baby of human flesh and blood. It was easy for me to relate to him being a father myself. But there the analogy ends and the problem begins.
Why do say so?
Jon: How would I act as the father of the son of God? To carry him in my arms and be called father of Jesus? It’s mind boggling! And then how could I accept Mary, my beloved, the mother of Jesus, my bethtrothed yet not my wife as it was in the early Jewish tradition not touch to her, much less bed her, and then to find out she is with child? Ayayay!
It is a shocker! How is the script treatment?
Jon: It’s a power-packed script really. Joseph in Ms. Asensio’s script goes bananas (or totally insane) understandably so. Tita Fides has written in several “shockers” for this new musical which is posing a huge challenge for me as a singing actor. I can only pray I will do justice to the role.
You were gone for quite some time from the music theater stage. You are best remembered for your role as Kris (Aquino) in the musical Bongbong at Kris. What has brought you back to the musical stage?
Tricia: I left the musical theater scene to continue my studies. While studying, I sang classical songs and opera arias as required by the curriculum for the University of the Philippines College of Music, Dance and Theater Department. After graduation from college, I got married and became more than a stage performer, a mother to my four sons and wife to my husband Butch (Jimenez). Now that our children are at the threshold of adulthood and independence, I can feel I can give some time to an activity I love and left. So here I am.
Welcome back Tricia! Why did you choose Mary for your comeback role?
I had always wanted to perform in a music theater work my voice mentor wrote, but I had never envisioned myself playing Mary, mother of Jesus! I have to think back many years (laughter) to get into the teen years when Mary is first seen and heard in the Song of Joseph. It’s a good thing I don’t have to remove as many pounds since we are wearing long loose costumes.
How do you feel about doing a comeback?
Tricia: Excited and elated! I have had the great fortune of being the first to essay the major roles in new musicals early in my singing career and now after all of these years I get to do Mary, the mother of Jesus for my comeback to the musical stage.
Song of Joseph runs at the Meralco Theater on Nov. 18, 19 and 20 at 8 p.m. — Isah V. Red
