Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. 31 Franco Vera Reyes, Taliba (April 26, 1930). No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). In this article, I trace de la Ramas creative authorship through analyses of her performances onstage and offstage, where the aural and visual aspects of her role as Filipina diva come together. Such self-fashioning carried political significance, especially during the resurgence of nationalism and in the emerging womens movement during the 1920s and 1930s in the Philippines. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. 51 From Lacnico-Buenaventuras 1985 interview with de la Rama. PHILCLASSIC CHANNEL 7.74K subscribers Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama (1905-1991) National Artist for Theater and Music (1987) Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama was formally honored as the Queen of. Postwar productions changed the title to Ang Masayang Dalaga (The Happy Maiden), which reflects a subtler variation of the dalagang haliparot type. Becks store sold radios and phonographs and was the distributor of Columbia records in Manila. 3 (1993): 32043; and Nicanor Tiongson, A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879-2009), Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. The local vaudeville or bodabil stageas it was referred to in Tagalogprovided such a space for blurring the boundaries between traditional and modern, old and new. Moreover, de la Ramas celebrity status did not rely solely on her vocal ability, but also on the visual aspects of her performances on- and offstage. These recordings showcase de la Ramas vocal prowess and range. : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. Scholars have rightly commented on how the sarsuwelas preserved the largely patriarchal social order of early twentieth-century Manila, even as the theatrical stage critiqued colonial powers.Footnote6 Yet to understand the sarsuwela as a purely representational form at the expense of its musical and performative aspects is to neglect the larger stakes of its world-making and the multiple possibilities of meaning it conveys. Atang believed that art should be for everyone; not only did she perform in major Manila theaters such as the Teatro Libertad and the Teatro Zorilla, but also in cockpits and open plazas in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. De la Rama on the front cover of The Womans Outlook (July 1926 Issue). This short song features de la Ramas use of vocal slides and a gruff timbre that intensifies as she sings the final verse: What seemed like an innocent and playful depiction of the mundane becomes tinged with innuendo as de la Ramas rendition of the final verse elicits boisterous and knowing laughter from her partner Ocampo. Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. 10 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 2. By the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the influx of American popular music (often collectively referred to by contemporary artists and critics as jazz) resulted in foxtrots, blues, Charleston (spelled tsarleston in the scripts), and, later on, the Hawaii an hula being incorporated into the sarsuwela repertoire. At the height of her career, she sang kundimans and other Filipino songs in concerts in such cities as Hawaii, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo. 16 In his first solo, Romansa, Cipriano refers to Angelita as his banal na Birhen (holy Virgin [Mary]). 1 Notes on terminology: I use Tagalog primarily to mean the language, while I use Filipino as descriptor for the people and Philippine culture more broadly. Throughout the sarsuwela, the urbanization of Manila and its perceived vices are placed in subtle contrast against the idyllic image of the countryside represented through the character of Angelita. Of all the many roles she played and stages on which she appeared, her performance in Dalagang Bukid remains her greatest and most memorable success.Footnote72 But a more comprehensive account of her creative and artistic breadth reveals an artist with a keen understanding of performance both on and off the stage. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. Atang dela Rama was a graduate of BS Pharmacy in 1922. De la Ramas dual image of the traditional Filipina and the cosmopolitan professional artist strikingly parallels these multiple strategies, and her inclusion in the publication highlights how her rising status as an international celebrity lent particular potency to the idea of feminine progress in the Philippines. At the age of 15, she starred in . Robert Schofield, then Dean of the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Philippines, asserted in 1922 that jazz was a sickness in the music of the Philippines, much like in the United States, and posed a danger to Filipino musicality.Footnote36 Outlining his vision for national music, Filipino composer Francisco Santiago also criticized the cheap dance music flooding the local music scene and warned against native composers adoption of American airs [] old cakewalk, the noisy march of Sousa, and the deafening and somewhat distorted jazz.Footnote37 Yet, ironically, Santiago also praised sarsuwela composers such as Juan Hernandez, Nicanor Abelardo, and Francisco Buencamino, all of whom had utilized jazz idioms in their compositions.Footnote38, De la Ramas performances on the bodabil stage, however, point to the critical role of the emerging popular entertainment industry in the very creation of a Filipino musical identity. 36 Ang Wika at mga Tugtugin, Bagong Lipang Kalabaw (October 7, 1922). As a localized form of the Spanish zarzuela,Footnote3 the sarsuwela flourished in the archipelago through the work of playwrights, composers, and artists who projected the mundane and the political in their everyday colonial experience under occupation by the United States.Footnote4 Early advocates of the sarsuwela envisioned the genre as a vehicle for moral and cultural uplift of its local audience in a bid to establish a national theater.Footnote5 Tagalog-language repertoire from the first decades of the twentieth century ranged from critiques of colonialism and its legacies of blind religiosity and superstition of the native population to various vices such as alcoholism, gambling, and prostitution among Manilas emerging working class. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. [4] She has also been a theatrical producer, writer and talent manager. Trivia (7) As Queen of Zarzuela, she starred in more than 50 zarzuelas. A sense of this interpretation can be gleaned from her recording of this pivotal song released years following the sarsuwelas premiere.Footnote17 Listening to the recording of Nabasag ang Banga, the power of de la Ramas voice is defined less by its intensity and more by the preciseness of her pitch and clarity of her tone. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. As Jun Cruz Reyes has suggested, it is possible that Hernandez became more politically active because of de la Rama, not the other way around.Footnote69 Such a commentary points to the generative work done by women like de la Rama that often remain unacknowledged in histories of Philippine culture. In 1938, she formed her own theatrical group, the Compaia De la Rama, which staged sarsuwela repertoire and some Tagalog adaptations of European repertoire such as Puccinis Madama Butterfly.Footnote52 She wrote and directed shows for the bodabil stage which featured a mix of jazz and blues songs with Tagalog repertoire that she performed. She was widowed in 1970 In 1970, at the age of 68, her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, passed away. Her vocal technique and theatricality not only made her especially well-suited for the genre but also created the kundimans distinctive sentimentality and now-standard performative nuances. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority on the theatrical stage. Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez (January 11, 1902 - July 11, 1991), commonly known as Atang de la Rama was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress.. Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. 43 Peter Keppy, Tales of the Southeast Asian Jazz Age, 80. She frequently performed at rallies and events organized by various womens groups like Panitik Kababaihan (a womens literary society), Kaisahan ng Kababaihan sa Pilipinas (where she served as president), the Women Auxiliary of the Confederation of Labor Organization, and the Ladies Association in her hometown of Gagalangin, Tondo. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. Today marks the 28th death anniversary of the Philippines massive star, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama born on January 11, 1902, and died in 1991. The 1919 silent-film version of Dalagang Bukid, considered the first film largely produced and directed in the Philippines by Filipinos, capitalized on de la Ramas early success onstage as much as it propelled her career forward. 7 Carolyn Abbate, Opera; or, the Envoicing of Women, in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. No recording of this song has so far materialized, but reviews of the sarsuwela underline the effectiveness of de la Ramas performance. Atang became the very first actress in the very first locally produced Filipino film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela's film version. On December 7, 1919, the Compaa Ilagan staged the Tagalog sarsuwelaFootnote1 Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) for the benefit of its star artist, Honorata Atang de la Rama (19021991), whose public entreaty can be found in the productions playbill: Beloved public: your dalagang bukid gives her benefit Sunday night If you come to see me I will cry with joy and delight; but if you do not honor me with your presence, I will truly mourn, much like how Angelita cries when she is disappointed with her beloved Cipriano. national hometown : pandacan artist manila award type of art : for theater and theater music and music tools and materials : (1987) music and films why is the artists' art artistic, distinctive, and of superior quality? Early life . In the dramas final act, the playwright imagines a Philippines in a state of regression under a female-led government. Bernardino Buenaventura of Samahang Gabriel (Company Gabriel) rewrote it for the stage with music by Jose Z. Rivera. 2 (2010): 14986. He initially established KZIB to advertise his merchandise and to help boost sales through entertainment, which he provided by tapping the local recording artists for Columbia, including de la Rama, as part of his regular music programming.Footnote49. (2002). By the age of 7 she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota Sueo de un Vals and Marina. See also Fernandez, Palabas, 8889. Background Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. She fought for the advancement of the art for everyone so she brought the kundiman and sarsuela not only in big theaters in Manila but also in cockpit arena and plazas in the provinces and in the distant places of the natives. Atang dela Rama is billed 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' as she portrayed the title role in Dalagang Bukid in 1919. 21 Tiongson, Atang de la Rama, 59; Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela, 331. He remarks on how the phrase became a popular idiom among the Tagalog-speaking public, who found the phrase more pleasing to the ear and a more appropriate substitute to saying losing ones virginity in public. A careful study of the life and career of de la Rama fills a huge gap in the history of the performing arts in the Philippines that has emphasized male playwrights, composers, and political elites in their representations of the Filipina. She was an actress, known for Dalagang bukid (1919), Mahiwagang binibini: Ang kiri (1939) and Oriental Blood (1930). Fictional representations of the Filipina as the heroine often relied on the ideal good woman archetype or on the moral redemption of the good girl-turned-bad. Images of meek and subservient women abound in early twentieth century Tagalog literature, which led literary historian and critic Soledad Reyes to comment on the recurring portrayal of the obedient, faithful and self-sacrificing wife who suffers in silence even when confronted with her husbands infidelities.Footnote12 The characterizations of women in Tagalog sarsuwelas, on the other hand, reflected differing attitudes and responses to modernization in the Philippines. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. Her real . Original text: Atang, sta es la primera vez desde hace no s cuanto tiempo que oigo un kundiman nuestro. As such, her work serves as a critical example of an artists rewriting of gendered identities embedded in the text and music. Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez (January 11, 1902 July 11, 1991), commonly known as Atang de la Rama, was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress. 20 Remigio Mat Castro, Nabasag ang Banga? 63 Personal Papers, Statements, and Reports Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111373/datejpg1.htm, 5. Original text: Kung napupuri at kinagigiliwan ang Maria Luisa, ang masasabi ko, bilang awtor, ay utang kay Atang de la Rama na isang tunay na himala sa pagtupad ng kanyang papel simula sa unang bahagi ng dula at hanggang sa wakas lalo noong inaawit niya ang awit ng pagkahibang Hesus Naririnig sa lahat ng dako nang dulaan ang iyakan ng mga manonood at ang mga piping buntong -hininga ng damdaming nakukuyom sa kanilang mga puso.. For a fascinating study on commemoration, prestige, and nation-building in the National Artist Award in the Philippines, see Neal D. Matherne, Naming the Artist, Composing the Philippines: Listening for the Nation in the National Artist Award, (PhD dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 2014). Deflecting the advances of this suitor, Angelita elopes with her childhood sweetheart, the law student Cipriano. De la Rama in different versions of the traje de mestiza and terno. Her distinctive voice, stage presence, and memorable portrayal of the country maiden inspired the creation of a new repertoire of Tagalog sarsuwelas and gave momentum to the lyrical stage, just as other types of entertainment like vaudeville and cinema were gaining popularity in the Philippines in the early 1920s. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. This later version of the balintawak developed strong associations with the rural countryside such as the town of Antipolo where the more affluent Manileos would visit for summer jaunts and picnics.Footnote57, Figure 1. Figure 2. This approach allows me to situate the sarsuwela stage as part of a growing industry that included vaudeville, early cinema, sound recording, and radio. Tamang sagot sa tanong: MUSIC please help me() - studystoph.com By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. However, Angelita is forced by her parents to marry a wealthy loan shark, Don Silvestre, as they need money to pay for their gambling habit and other vices. 15 Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havanas Lyric Stage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 7. On September 4, 1915, a lengthy article on the foxtrot by American ballroom dancer Joan Sawyer appeared in the Manila weekly journal The Independent, complete with detailed instructions and suggestions for which music should accompany the dance.Footnote22 Incorporating a foxtrot in the sarsuwela also points to a standard practice of using globally circulating popular musics in sarsuwela scores. Read full biography. Angelita ( Atang de la Rama ), a young flower vendor who works in front of a cabaret named Dalagang Bukid, and poor law student Cipriano (Marceliano Ilagan) are in love. Such bodabil performances not only complicate de la Ramas image as the virtuous dalagang bukid but they also illustrate the overlapping networks of different popular entertainment circuits in the Philippines in the 1920s and 1930s. Atang Dela Rama is a national artist for theater and music queen of kundiman. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. De la Ramas personal writings hint that she engaged directly in this balancing act between private and public life. See Tiongson, Atang de la Rama, 31. The Filipino dresss butterfly sleeves and abac fabric made of banana tree fibers (also called Manila hemp) were considered impractical for the modern workplace. 3 Written histories of Spanish zarzuela in the Philippines often start with an account of the staging of Francisco Barbieris Jugar con Fuego, sometime between 1878 and 1879 by Dario Cspedes, who managed a zarzuela company in Spain prior to his arrival in Manila. Atang Dela Rama was born on January 11, 1905 in Manila, Philippines. Castros remarks on the artists rendition of Awit ng Pagkahibang and the reactions it elicited from the audience drives home the centrality of performance in the conception of a musical and theatrical work. Theater historian Nicanor Tiongson underscores the importance of Ignacio and de la Ramas relationship, and how he helped launch her career by guaranteeing her roles in sarsuwelas that he was commissioned to write.Footnote23 Yet it was also plausible that Ignacios career and the entire Tagalog sarsuwela scene in Manila took an upward turn because of de la Ramas successful debut in Dalagang Bukid. This essay examines the role of Atang de la Rama in the development of the Tagalog sarsuwela and in the emerging popular entertainment industry in the Philippines in order to make a claim about women in performance as primary creators of Filipino culture and identity. Breaking down stereotypes: The divas voice, On the multiple stages of popular entertainment, Creating Filipina nationalism: The divas image, https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2021.1992595, https://www.flickr.com/photos/9307819@N05/2544474500/in/photostream/, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/clippings/NLPADB00811486/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/NL02/NLPADGD40850fd/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00311420/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111373/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111378/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/home.htm, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health. I will never permit myself to be caught dead in a knee-length skirt, without the customary panuelo, and without camisa sleeves that look like the wings of a newly hatched grasshopper.Footnote63. Courtesy of Butterscotch Auction, Newspaper accounts of her tours abroad included descriptions of de la Ramas appearance, revealing the medias tendency to focus on female singers physical looks more than on their musical talent. p. 97-109. Placing the performer and her creative labor front and center, I aim to contribute to the larger conversation surrounding the female voice as authorial and the performance as text. Figure 4. But de la Ramas success in Dalagang Bukid ushered in a renewal of the lyrical stage with works by other emerging playwrights such as Precioso Palmas Paglipas ng Dilim (After the Darkness, 1920), Julian Cruz Balmacedas Sa Bunganga ng Pating (In the Sharks Jaws, 1921), and Servando de los Angeless Alamat ng Nayon (Legend of the Town, 1925). Soon after, fighting broke out between American and Filipino forces, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipino military and civilians. Wherever I go, in the course of my professional tours and engagements, I always wear my saya long and the sleeves of my camisa as ample as they should be like the gauzy wings of a butterfly, and it has never failed to elicit sighs of admiration among women of other countries I have visited. Similarly, de la Rama remains a crucial figure in the early history of cinema in the Philippines, even as she herself was starting out on the sarsuwela stage. One particular song recording, the duet Bibingka (a type of Filipino rice cake delicacy), is particularly illustrative in demonstrating de la Ramas jazzy vaudevillian character. Career By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. In 1901, for example, a show advertised as a Novelty in Manila was held at the Teatro Zorrilla that included a variety of acts, ragtime numbers, acrobatics, and minstrelsy performances accompanied by a Good American Orchestra. See Doreen Fernandez, Apolonio B. Chua, and Galileo S. Zafra, Bodabil, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). She firmly believed . By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. 13 The womens movement in the Philippines further gained momentum in 1921 with the establishment of the National Federation of Womens Clubs that mobilized for suffrage. In the local vaudeville circuit, for instance, she performed novelty songs in English and popular excerpts from Italian operas, including duets with the Italian baritone Mario Padovani. Perhaps the most remarkable review comes from Maria Luisas author, Remigio Mat Castro, published in the Tagalog paper Pagkakaisa: If Maria Luisa is praised and enjoyed, I can only say that, as its author, I am indebted to Atang de la Rama, who is a true miracle in her role from the first act of the play until the end more so when she sang the song of madness Jesus One hears from all corners of the theater the audience crying and the mute sighs of their pent-up emotions.Footnote32. She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. 44 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 419. 3099067 Historical accounts of the 1919 Dalagang Bukid film version remark on how de la Rama, on occasion, performed the songs live and in synchrony with the film.Footnote51 In this early beginning of commercial cinema in the Philippines, it was de la Ramas voice from behind the curtain that provided the emotional depth to the novelty of images being projected on the screen. De la Ramas performances were at once sources of musical authorship and powerful testaments to womens creative work that has long been overlooked in the historiography of Philippine music and culture. De la Rama.Footnote2. Sawyer also campaigned for womens suffrage during this period and, as dance and theater historian Julie Malnig argues, linked the rhetoric of physical and psychological progress to dance and to womens new-found freedoms. See Julie Malnig, Two-Stepping to Glory: Social Dance and the Rhetoric of Social Mobility, Etnofoor 10, no. While a few scholars have previously underlined the sexual innuendo in Nabasag ang Banga, the reading of the broken jug as a metaphor for lost virginity had a somewhat contested origin.Footnote19 Indeed, the reception of the songs sexual themes in de la Ramas performance may have prompted Tagalog writer Remigio Mat Castro to remark in 1923 that the playwright Ilagan did not intend any metaphorical messages for the original song but instead meant for it to be taken literally.Footnote20 In his compilation of short stories, Nabasag ang Banga?, Castro borrows the popular song title and, in his introduction, insists that nabasag ang banga acquired its metaphorical meaning outside of the context of the sarsuwela. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. See also Angel Velasco and Luis Francia, Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999 (New York: New York University Press, 2002). De la Ramas fame as the Queen of Kundiman spread beyond Manila as she embarked on several extended tours abroad in 1926, 1932, and 1936. As Roces argues, for the new class of working and professional women, [m]odernization required the abandonment of traditional dress when performing modern tasks.Footnote61, Figure 3. 5 The playwright Severino Reyes was among the early advocates of the Tagalog sarsuwela who produced didactic works that were critical of Spanish colonialism. Following her leading role debut in Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama had gained a reputation that quickly spread among the theater-going public of Manila. The National Artists of the Philippines. 58 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 3233. For more on the history of the U.S. empire the Philippines, see Paul Kramer, Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Since this award holds up the recipient to public honor and recognition by Ateneo de Manila University, the personal integrity and moral qualities of the honoree should also be considered, as honorees of the university are meant to be held up as models in their own lines of endeavor. 67 Jun Cruz Reyes, Ka Amado (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2012), 15354, 25657. A 1930 appearance in the sarsuwela Maria Luisa offers another example of de la Ramas authorial role as a performing artist.Footnote30 In this work, she played the role of Anita, the daughter of the wealthy Don Justo.
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