During the two-day Italian Food Festival at Ayala Triangle Gardens on 25 and 26 May 2024, the movie of the performance of Gianni Schicchi’s opera in Tondo was shown to the general public at 6pm and 8pm.
“Gianni Schicchi: a live opera in Tondo”, the first-ever fully staged opera performance in Tondo, featuring the Manila Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Marlon Chen, took place on March 23rd 2024 in the San Pablo Apostol Parish playground in Tondo before an audience of over 500 people, most of whom were young members of the Tondo community. This event showcased Giacomo Puccini’s delightful one-act comic opera Gianni Schicchi and was one of the most ambitious initiatives of the festival “The Embassy of Italy Meets the Youth of Tondo” organized by the Embassy of Italy in collaboration with the Canossa-Tondo Children’s Foundation.
The opera was performed in its original Italian language. Given the educational nature of the initiative, two singers periodically paused the performance to explain the plot in Tagalog, helping the young audience follow along.
The success of this remarkable educational project was immense. Since the event was primarily for the Tondo community and only a select few guests could attend, Italian Ambassador Marco Clemente decided to transform the video recording of the show, made by The Manila Times TV, into a movie for the general public. This project received generous support from AyalaLand and Ayala Cinema, which agreed to screen the film twice in the afternoon on both Saturday 25 May and Sunday 26 May, during the Italian Food Festival at the Ayala Triangle Gardens. The film will also be shown in a commercial movie theater on June 7.
The audience at the Ayala Triangle Gardens had the unique opportunity to experience the magic of opera in an informal setting through a high-quality and educational performance. Initiatives like this help demystify opera, a genre often considered elitist, overly complex, and distant from contemporary tastes. The “Gianni Schicchi in Tondo” screening at the Ayala Triangle Gardens clearly demonstrated that these prejudices are unfounded.
This initiative by the Italian Embassy, in partnership with local organizations, underscores the importance of making cultural experiences accessible to a broader audience. By bringing opera to unconventional settings and explaining it in familiar languages, such projects can foster a deeper appreciation and understanding of the arts among diverse communities. The transformation of Gianni Schicchi from a live performance to a widely accessible film marks a significant step in this direction.
