In the final repetition of the songs chorus, de la Rama plays out affective vocal nuances with the pronounced slowness of her delivery. 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. In the April 26, 1930 issue of the Tagalog daily Taliba, for example, Franco Vera Reyes wrote, I hope the many artists who starred in Maria Luisa will not be offended by this but they owe a huge part of the zarzuelas success to the muse of the Tagalog drama [Mutya ng Dulaang Tagalog]. 65 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 37. Although this pairing was at times fraught with rumors of domestic quarrels, de la Rama and Hernandez remained together, even after Hernandez was imprisoned for six years in the 1950s on charges of rebellion and associations with the communist movement.Footnote67 In one of her more candid postwar interviews, de la Rama spoke of how she supported the social causes that her husband championed: Oh, Ka Amado was a labor leader, councilor, poet, writer. De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. Adam in Paradise) that is set on an island full of women, all of whom pursued a stranded and hapless man with a mix of enticing dialogs, songs, and comedic repartees.Footnote53 This is a side of de la Ramas stage career that is not well known, one that stands in striking contrast to her reputation as the demure country maiden. 66 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, 4). 5 The playwright Severino Reyes was among the early advocates of the Tagalog sarsuwela who produced didactic works that were critical of Spanish colonialism. 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 Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. 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. Original text is in English. 2 (2010): 35988, at 361. 18 Tiongson similarly underlines de la Ramas flirtatious performance as he reconstructs the artists rendition of Nabasag ang Banga. See Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin (Pasay City, Philippines: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1987), 19. 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). 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). As of this writing, there are 7 National Artist for Theater awardees. At the end of this rendition, one is left with the distinct impression that she is mischievously waiting to tip over and break the jar herself.Footnote18. In addition to the sarsuwela and bodabil stages, de la Rama commanded an audience via emerging new media such as audio recordings, radio, and film. Atang became the very first actress in the very first Tagalog film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela's film version. Order of National Artists of the Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atang_de_la_Rama&oldid=1130385614, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 December 2022, at 22:45. Becks store sold radios and phonographs and was the distributor of Columbia records in Manila. As scholars Peter Keppy and Frederick Schenker have noted, the real-life cabarets that proliferated in the Philippines were subject to crackdowns by local authorities as well as to criticisms by Filipino elites and nationalist rhetoric.Footnote24 Schenker, in particular, points to the ways in which bailarinas of this period were caught in the debates about Filipino racial respectability and readiness for self-rule.Footnote25, Ang Kiri fleshes out the moral and cultural contradictions of Manilas cabaret scene through the story of Sesang, a former bailarina who reenters polite society.Footnote26 As the kiri or coquette character, Sesang bears the social stigma of her occupation and struggles to seek moral redemption throughout the drama. Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez commonly known as Atang de la Rama was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress. 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). Although it is difficult to ascertain how widely de la Ramas image from the 1919 playbill circulated, it is highly probable that her onstage character contributed to the popularity of the country theme in many studio photographs. 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 Ramas long career richly illustrates the power of the female voice in shattering gendered and prescriptive notions of Filipino nationalism that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s amidst anxieties over the Americanization of Filipino culture. The sarsuwela (also labeled in the Tagalog as opereta by its librettist Hermogenes Ilagan) was set to music by de la Ramas brother-in-law Leon Ignacio. [3] Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. 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. She died on July 11, 1991 in the Philippines. Wilfredo Ma. While playwrights and composers at the turn of the twentieth century used the term zarzuela for their Tagalog-language works, the term sarsuwela (alternatively spelled sarswela or sarsuela) did not come into use until the late 1910s and early 1920s and, by then, were often used interchangeably with opereta. In this essay, I follow scholars Nicanor Tiongson and Doreen Fernandez in their use of sarsuwela as a general term to mean works produced in any of the local languages in the Philippines, including Tagalog-language repertoire, from the early 1900s to the present. The most notable of these were Sakay, Anak Dalita, Kandelerong Pilak, Sergeant Hasan, Destination Vietnam, and The Evil Within. Among the highlights of the production was the song performed by de la Rama, Awit ng Pagkahibang (Delirium Song) in the second act. A copy of the playbill can be found in Adlai Laras personal Flickr photo collection,https://www.flickr.com/photos/9307819@N05/2544474500/in/photostream/ (accessed October 3, 2019). Si Adan sa Paraiso, Plays and Short Stories Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00311420/datejpg1.htm). This is significant when the use of fashion negotiated multiple aspects of Filipina femininity at a time when womens roles in the larger society were changing rapidly, and as de la Rama shaped her own professional career in the Philippines and abroad. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. group 4 theater it is the direction, performance and/or production design the roster ofnational artists (theater) honorata 'atang' dela rama. 25 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 25657. The works of Severino Reyes (18611942), one of the foremost playwrights of the Tagalog sarsuwela, are exemplary. Kung umaawit siya sa tanghalan ay laging minamataan niya ang mga gumagambala sa kanyang pag-awit, at sa sandaling makatapos ay nananaog siya sa ibaba at binabayaran ng mariing sampal sa mukha ang sinumang bumastos sa kanya. I am especially indebted to Pamela Potter, Christi-Anne Castro, Susan Cook, Anne Shreffler, Elaine Fitz Gibbon, Elisabeth Reisinger, David Miller, and Frederick Schenker. 2021 Felice P Sta Maria 2019 Danny E Dalena 2018 A survey of her extant recordings yields a discography of thirty-five Tagalog songs, mostly for Columbia records, from the 1920s to the late 1930s.Footnote48 A number of these songs, like Nabasag ang Banga and Masayang Dalaga, originate in sarsuwelas while others are Tagalog folk and novelty songs and duets recorded with Vicente Ocampo. 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). 7 Carolyn Abbate, Opera; or, the Envoicing of Women, in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. 44 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 419. 55 Karen Henson, Introduction: Of Modern Operatic Mythologies and Technologies, in Technology and the Diva: Sopranos, Opera, and Media from Romanticism to the Digital Age, ed. These and most of the other sarsuwelas in which de la Rama performed were composed by Leon Ignacio, the foremost sarsuwela composer of the 1920s. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. But even as de la Rama was widely known as the Queen of the Kundiman, she also performed songs outside of the kundiman and Tagalog repertory and occasionally appeared in risqu performances. Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo Manila on January 11 1902. 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. The Philippine-American war officially ended in 1902, while pockets of armed resistance continued in various provinces and locales outside of Manila at least until 1913. 16 In his first solo, Romansa, Cipriano refers to Angelita as his banal na Birhen (holy Virgin [Mary]). The woman general, Heneral Emilia, is an unmistakable reference to Emilio Aguinaldo (18691964), a general during the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the first Filipino president. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. On May 8, 1987, "for her sincere devotion to original Filipino theater and music, her outstanding artistry as singer, and as sarsuela actress-playwright-producer, her tireless efforts to bring her art to all sectors of Filipino society and to the world," President Corazon C. Aquino proclaimed Atang de la Rama a National Artist of the Philippines for Theater and Music.[5]. Standard historical accounts often point to Severino Reyess shift in his writing career to become a journalist and editor in the early 1920s as the beginning of sarsuwelas decline, just as vaudeville and film were becoming more popular in the Philippines. Whether Ilagan intended the double entendre or not, it is likely that de la Ramas rendition and continued performance of the song was the true source for the broken jug euphemism. She became the very first actress in the very first . I then turn to de la Ramas work outside of the sarsuwela to further elaborate on her authorial performance within the broader landscape of popular entertainment in the Philippines and abroad. 61 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 45. Copies of her comedy sketches includes a short skit entitled Lalake!!! Such critiques and social commentary also projected gendered prescriptions of the ideal Filipina as demure and virtuous, the dalagang Filipina, a recurring trope in Philippine literature and culture that persists to this day. Her performances on the sarsuwela stage refashioned stereotypical female characters. 19 Doreen Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation, Philippine Studies 41, no. She navigated the theatrical stages of sarsuwela and bodabil fluidly, occasionally writing and producing shows herself. Atang Dela Rama Angelita Mar I. Esmeralda Director Jose Nepomuceno Writers Leon Ignacio (story) Hermogenes Ilagan (story) All cast & crew Production, box office & more at IMDbPro Storyline Edit Did you know Trivia Considered as the first Filipino movie made. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. 33 See also Matthew Wittman, Empire of Culture: U.S. De la Ramas celebrity status also carried through the visual aspects of her public persona on and off stage, cultivating an image that was both modern and traditional, Filipino and cosmopolitan. 64 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 224. Orphaned at an early age, she grew up under the care of an elder sister who was married to a zarzuela composer where she was constantly exposed to the zarzuela. Spanish artists Elisea Raguer and Alejandro Cubero soon followed and were later responsible for training local artists such as Nemesio Ratia, Jos Carvajal, and Prxedes Yeyeng Fernndez, all of whom subsequently formed their own companies. 2. Courtesy of Adlai Lara. During the latter part of her life she lived in Gagalangin, Tondo, birthplace of her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, himself a National Artist, whom she married in 1932. Bernardino Buenaventura of Samahang Gabriel (Company Gabriel) rewrote it for the stage with music by Jose Z. Rivera. 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. Another way to consider de la Ramas performance and creation of Filipina nationalism is through the image of the diva and the symbolic power it carried. Original text: Tumutulong si Atang de la Rama upang ang mga may pangit na asal na nanonood sa mga dulaan ay matutong gumalang sa arte. 17 The recording I used for this analysis is a compact disc compilation entitled Kamuning: Re-mastered (Quezon City: Yesteryears Music Gallery, 2000). 41 See Antonio C. Hila, Ramon P. Santos, and Arwin Q. Tan, Kundiman, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., ed. 39 Newspaper Clippings Folder 3, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/clippings/NLPADB00811486/datejpg1.htm, 7. Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. The intricate folding of the panuelo is in itself an art, and it has been a constant source of wonder among foreigners. An article from 1932 in Manilas Spanish-language newspaper La Vanguardia, for example, announced the decline of the sarsuwela due to the profane and good for nothing vaudeville.Footnote35 Such commentaries underline the debates between high and low art that preoccupied composers and intellectuals of the period, and express their anxieties about American influence. 72 A typescript account found at the Atang de la Rama Collection listing her appearance in sarsuwela performances puts Dalagang Bukid at the top with a total of 724 performances. : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. In the drama, Angelita is often referred to as gentle and ladylike; she carries an aura of virtue and innocence about her as she sells flowers in Manilas unsavory cabaret districts.Footnote16. 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. Rama fought for the dominance of the such as: kundiman, an important Philippine folk song, Theater (1968) and the sarsuela, which is a musical play that Doon sa Dakong Timog. Born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1905, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina by the age of five. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. 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. 15 Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havanas Lyric Stage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 7. A recording of the song, set in the lilting danza rhythm, begins with a subdued rendition by de la Rama of the opening verse as Sesang sadly reminisces about her cabaret days. I would also like to thank Journal of Musicological Research editor Hilary Poriss and the journals anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback. The solo Nabasag ang Banga (The Clay Jar Broke) from the first act provides a description of Angelitas character. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. And she gets away with it.Footnote47 While there are only a few accounts of de la Ramas performances outside of the kundiman repertoire, recordings provide more information about the breadth of styles and repertoire in which she excelled. 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. 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. During the American. Honorata "Atang" Marquez de la Rama-Hernandez. 14 From the typescript of the play Tatlong Babae: Ang Babae Bukas, act 3, p. 9, Severino Reyes Collection, Cultural Center of the Philippines Library and Archives, Pasay City, Philippines. 23 Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin, Liwayway (March 10, 1980). 4 Over three hundred years of Spanish colonial occupation in the Philippines ended with the Philippine Revolution (1896-1898) and the Treaty of Paris of 1898. As Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt have remarked, the ascendancy of women as performers paralleled, and in some cases generated, developments in wider society such as suffrage, social and sexual liberation, and women as business entrepreneurs and independent income earners and as models for new lifestyles.Footnote11 De la Ramas performing career on the multiple stages of musical theater and popular entertainment in the Philippines richly illustrates this dynamic. In many of her publicity photos, she wears the Filipino dress typically worn by middle- and upper-class women, the traje de mestiza (see Figure 3). TV Shows. 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. In effect, the magazine made an already familiar face available to a strata of women devoted to Filipina nationalism, encouraging women to take charge of their lives at home and outside of it, and, by extension, in the homeland and abroad. It is this sense of authorship that Hilary Poriss similarly argues for the critical work of prima donnas of the nineteenth century in their practice of altering operatic scores in performance, thereby challenging conceptions of authenticity of a given musical work.Footnote8 While Abbate and Poriss comment largely on the history and performance of European opera, such theorizations of the voice and of the performing artist are particularly helpful in teasing out the ways in which de la Ramas voice and stage presence position her as co-creator of sarsuwelas. Cultural Center of the Philippines. Of the 73 honorees since the awards reception in 1972, de la Rama is among only 11 women.Footnote71 Even in these later decades of her life, de la Rama presented herself in her trademark terno, a picture of grace with a little bit of spunk, not unlike her debut character half a century ago. I use the feminine form Filipina to mean Filipino women and, more specifically, the work of de la Rama in relation to the history of cultural nationalism in the Philippines. 36 Ang Wika at mga Tugtugin, Bagong Lipang Kalabaw (October 7, 1922). Opereta at Dula na ginampanan ni Atang sa 25 taon Personal Papers -- Certificates -- Awards Plays and Short Stories: Ang Aguinaldo ni Dante Plays and Short Stories: Ayaw sa Kapwa Artista Plays and Short Stories: Buod - Piso ni Anita The patriotic anthem Bayan Ko (My Country), perhaps the most famous and enduring kundiman in Philippine music history, was also popularized by de la Rama.Footnote42 Yet standard accounts ignore the critical role she played, instead tracing the development of the kundiman from its origins in a handful of songs created during the Revolutionary period at the turn of the twentieth century to the art songs of the conservatory composers. As Nabasag ang Banga progresses, however, the playfulness she adds to her interpretation slowly complicates the image of the meek and virginal Filipina. Through sound recordings, reviews, photos, and her own writings, I amplify de la Ramas musical and metaphorical voice to address the important role of women in Philippine music and popular culture. Formal U.S. occupation of the archipelago ended in 1946 with the declaration of Philippine Independence, while the influence of the American empire in the Philippines continued long after. Other photos of de la Rama from the 1930s onward show her holding the banga and wearing later versions of the balintawak that has a more straight-lined silhouette with matching fabric for the top and bottom parts of the dress. Atang de la Rama Collection: Manuscripts Home: Contents; Personal Papers -- Amado V. Hernanadez . Fernando Amorsolos Campesina (Peasant, 1927). 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. Details Release date September 25, 1919 (Philippines) Country of origin Philippines 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. 28 In Sesangs first entrance at the opening party scene, for example, the libretto instructs the actor to appear in a dress dcolletage (nakabestidong escotado). 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.
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