Music for lovers with Bel Canto
By Mehru Jaffer
JAKARTA (JP): If music is indeed the food of love, then the Bel Canto Valentine Operetta on Valentine's Day promises a sumptuous spread. It is expected to make even the most cynical couple reach out in celebration of this day of love, hopefully inspiring them to at least hold hands.
Led by Aris Sudibyo, the Petra Christian University Choir has traveled all the way from Surabaya with a group of 60 musicians, who will give a glimpse into how lovers have been both mournfully and mirthfully baring their soul to loved ones for over 500 years through poetry and music.
Love is free, love is free, so are her thoughts that vanquish thee, mused John Dowland in the late 16th century, wondering all the time if he would ever find a woman with a constant mind. And in the third part of the concert, titled Love of Our Days, the 1970 hit Ain't No Mountain High Enough by diva Diana Ross will conclude the musical soiree soaked in romance.
"I am so excited about performing here," said 35-year-old Sudibyo on the eve of Bel Canto vocal music series' fifth concert.
The self-confessed music lover, who has been studying it formally since he was a teenager, cannot sing enough about love.
More than all the reforms in the world, perhaps what the country needs most at the moment is a lot of love, and the choir directed by Sudibyo wants to give all it has at the performance, which is its first in Jakarta. The choir was started in 1989 by the then head of the university in an attempt to encourage both the staff and students to come together to sing in praise of God.
Later, the choir helped many other churches in Surabaya and other East Java regions to practice and perfect their hymns to God, participating in several tours, including to such distant sites as Makassar and Tana Toraja. Yet the choir makes no apology for performing different kinds of music today.
"If it is good music, it is beautiful. It doesn't matter whether it's music from the East or from the West," said Sudibyo.
He points to the neighboring Philippines, where all kinds of music is popular, giving birth to musicians who are masters at both classical and entertainment music. Testament is that cafes and concert halls around the world are filled with musicians from the Philippines.
"We have more people, more resources and more talent for music from different tribes and islands but few people have heard of us," said Sudibyo.
Bel Canto founder Dorothy Poon Louvet feels that both local artists and audiences are starved for good music. She said Bel Canto was born out of her deep love for Western classical music in early 1999 when the Batavia Madrigal Singers' French chansons repertoire performed at her home and many friends sang solo opera arias and duets.
With encouragement from The Dharmawangsa's managing director, Luis Fernandes, Dorothy organized the first performance at the end of the same year of three choral groups with both local and expatriate vocal soloists. Since then, Bel Canto Vocal Music Concerts have become regular fare at The Dharmawangsa, which has such a classical ambience surrounding it.
The concerts have already presented singers from Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya, along with the likes of master choral conductor Avip Priatna, sopranos Binu D. Sukaman, Aning Katamsi Asmoro and pianist Iswargia R. Sudarno and Adelaide Simanjuntak.
Dorothy recalled singing all the time in the church choir in Hong Kong but without any formal training. She invested most of her time in rushing around like other young women looking for business and making money. One day she decided to give it all up in pursuit of her only true love in life: music.
After her French husband retired, they decided to continue living in Jakarta and in 1994 she took lessons in the art of Bel Canto singing, which simply means beautiful singing and is used today to describe all Italian singing, particularly the light, bright way Italian opera singers use to charm audiences.
At first Dorothy sang for friends at home but in October she chose arias from Handel and Mozart operas to sing in an Evening at The Opera under the direction of Catherina Leimena. But she is not a strict purist.
Alongside Rossini, Puccini and Verdi, some of the most famous Bel Canto composers in whose operas are found the soaring soprano and tenor arias that make Italian operas so famous, the concerts also present music from Broadway to Disneyland.
The Valentine Operetta Music Concert will be held on Feb. 14 at The Dharmawangsa, Jl. Brawijaya Raya 26, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, 7:30 p.m. For reservations, call 8316808 or fax 8310626.