(Parts of this story by the author were first published in 2004 in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.)
For many years, No. 1081 Maceda Street in Sampaloc was where voice students went for lessons.
In a small studio in this two-room apartment, the Maestra would receive her students, teach vocalizations and good singing. Here you’d find an upright piano, a portable cassette recorder and blown-up photos of her students in voice recitals. The studio was also bursting with opera scores: The Barber of Seville, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, among others. On the ground floor was a huge painting of the Maestra as Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. She was the first Filipino soprano to sing the part and one of the first to sing Verdi’s Traviata.
There were two beds in another room that she used to share with a young tenor she had met at the peak of her Traviata and Lucia days. Every time I visited them, I’d be treated to long listening sessions of their Traviata, Lucia and Madama Butterfly recordings, between bottles of beer.
As far as my ear was concerned, the soprano had nothing to fear from Lily Pons, while the young tenor could be favorably compared with Giuseppi di Stefano, a favorite opera leading man of Maria Callas. Cluelessly, I’d frequently request the tenor to do my favorite Italian song, Gastaldon’s Musica Proibita (Forbidden Music).
(That explains why the piece is a frequently asked encore number of tenor Arthur Espiritu in Manila and Iloilo.)
Cluelessly again, I once asked another singer-friend: when were the Maestra and the tenor married?
It turned out they were not husband and wife. The soprano had been long separated from her husband and the tenor was just her student. After their paths crossed, the tenor left his wife to live with the soprano.
Among her voice students were former first ladies, Imelda R. Marcos and Aurora Quezon
In the ‘50s, that was quite a scandal and the repercussions were forthcoming. The soprano lost her teaching position in a famous music school and ended up teaching in her modest studio. But her list of students nonetheless was distinguished; it included Conchita Gaston, Dalisay Aldaba, Remedios Bosch Jimenez (Baby Arenas’ mother), Catalina Zandueta and of course, the young tenor who became her lover.
Among her voice students were former first ladies, Imelda R. Marcos and Aurora Quezon.
Indeed, the lovers were unfazed in the face of mounting ostracism. In the name of love, they lived together to the very end.
Maestra Santiago (center, in white) and her voice students in the late ’80s. First and second from right are the author and tenor Aristeo Velasco respectively. (Photo from P. Tariman files)
When the tenor died in the late ‘90s ahead of the soprano, I was surprised to see the Maestra Santiago talking with the tenor’s ex-wife. They are not enemies? I asked the Maestra’s maid. When I turned to the soprano, she told me calmly, “Paul, we have forgiven each other a long time ago. We have shared the same man and we both got our share of love. There is no reason to harbor ill feelings.”
The tenor’s nephew and niece at the wake were no other than actress Sharmaine Arnaiz and actor Patrick Garcia.
When the soprano died in 2003, her wake was deluged with flowers from former pupils and friends who were silent witnesses to her love affair with the younger tenor.
(The relationship was common knowledge in Manila society. The close kin apparently has come to relegate this to the past. The close kin read my story published in 2004, and they loved it.)
Soprano Mercedes Matias Santiago was born March 4, 1910, one of two daughters of Juan Matias of Ligao, Albay and Rosario Regalado of Cavite City.
This member of an opera-loving family frequented the Manila Grand Opera House and the Manila Metropolitan Theater. She was the third Filipino diva (after Isang Tapales and Jovita Fuentes) to leave the country for further studies abroad. Tapales debuted as Madama Butterfly at Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo, while Fuentes debuted in Piacenza’s Teatro Municipale. Santiago followed suit much later as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto in Turin’s Teatro Comunale, followed by a matinee performance as Rosina in Barber of Seville in Milan’s Teatro Lirico. On record, she was the first and last Filipino to sing for the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at the Palazzo where Italy’s top artists honored Il Duce.
President Manuel Quezon sent Santiago a seven-ft tall bouquet with an inscription: Ruisenor de Filipinas (Nightingale of the Philippines)
In the ‘30s and ‘40s, the soprano was the number one interpreter of Lucia di Lammermoor and La Traviata, among others. In one performance as Anina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula, then President Manuel Quezon sent Santiago a seven-ft tall bouquet with an inscription: Ruisenor de Filipinas (Nightingale of the Philippines).
Tenor Aristeo Velasco was born in 1922 in Calauag, Quezon, to an opera-loving family. His father, Pedro Velasco, was a doctor who loved music, while his mother, Dolores Pronstroller, of German-Spanish descent, took voice lessons and loved listening to a Victrola gramophone playing records of Italian singers like Amelita Gulli-Curci, Tita Ruffo and Enrico Caruso.
From the ’40s, a photo of Maestra Santiago standing before the bouquet sent to her by President Quezon after her performance of Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula.’ The performance was marred by a long brownout interruption but the audience stayed on until the wee hours.
When the tenor was about six, the family moved to Manila and lived behind the Manila Grand Opera House where he heard his first live opera singer. It is possible that the Velasco family had watched Mercedes Matias Santiago’s rendition of La Sonnambula, which was marred by a long brown-out so that it ended at 3 a.m., but the audience stayed put.
A doting grandmother, the late Carmen Tronqued Pronstroller, took the young Velasco to regular nights at the opera. He would later realize that he could sing. He won radio amateur singing contests and became a regular fixture in such shows as The Listerine Hour and Colgate Palmolive shows. He soon had a sizeable following when he started singing regularly in radio programs. In one program, Velasco was known as Johnny Veloz singing with one Diana Tuy.
The war years saw Velasco joining the Merchant Marine, where he was soon singing in a special program mounted by the Special Forces. Shortly before the war, he was lured to join bands performing in the hotel entertainment circuit. It was at Manila Hotel, while singing for the band of Serafin Payawal, that he received a personal compliment from no less than President Quezon for the special way he interpreted Spanish songs.
Maestra Santiago in her last photo with the author in her Sampaloc apartment (From P. Tariman files)
Eventually, he and the Maestra crossed paths. In one Manila production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Velasco played Lord Arthur Bucklaw, while Santiago had the title role. The intensity of her mad scene must have left a mark in the young man’s heart.
Indeed, they fell in love, threw social caution to the wind, and lived together in the house on Maceda Street for many years until their death.
Why the Maestra’s marriage broke up, she could only reflect gingerly. During our interview years ago, while listening to an old recording of Traviata arias, she told me that her husband had lost interest in her during those years when she was the opera toast of Manila. He hardly could be found during her opening nights. The husband was also listless that they had no children to speak of. “When I saw a doctor, I was told I couldn’t have a baby because my uterus was defective. That tore us apart even more.”
At that time, she was tall and beautiful, the tenor was young and dashing. The romance of tenor Aristeo Velasco and soprano Mercedes Matias was ignited and intensified by their love of music.
And they didn’t seem to mind mind that polite society in the ‘50s and the ‘60s frowned on their relationship.
Indeed, their forbidden love reflected the beautiful lyrics of an aria from Tosca—“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore (I have lived for art and love).”
Interviewed by another friend, Maestra Santiago opened up about her life: “My life is something like the opera Lucia de Lammermoor… It’s a little sad, a little tragic and a little romantic.”
Maestra Santiago with legendary beauty of the 50s Susan Magalona.
