Filipina mezzo soprano Michelle Mariposa stunned an intimate audience in a tertulia, a song recital, at the Pastor Art Center in Atty. Antonio Pastor’s ancestral residential compound in Batangas City last Monday, January 5.
Michelle is the 2025 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition winner, and a Cafritz Young Artist at the Washington National Opera.
Tony Pastor thanks the audience who made the trip to Batangas.
In his opening remarks, 97-year-old Tony Pastor, himself a celebrated tenor in his prime and a pianist, informed the audience that it was his advocacy to bring good music to the community and his friends outside of it. He said that he was very much impressed with the credentials of the featured artist to “let her sing in Batangas.” Emphatically, he added, “Music is a basic human right, too, that touches and uplifts the soul.”
The concert was a veritable “informance,” where Michelle introduced songs before singing them. The program consisted of art songs, operatic arias and Philippine songs.
Fittingly, the first group of songs was subtitled “The voyager longs for home,” a nostalgic reference to the soprano’s longing for home, after absence from the country in pursuit of a singing career in the US. She sang art songs by European composers, such as Henri Duparc, L’invitation au voyage (Invitation to the voyage); Franz Schubert, Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren (Song of a Boatman to the Dioscuri) and Im Fruhling (In Spring); and Hugo Wolf’s Mignon: Kennst du das land (Mignon: Do you know the land where the lemons blossom?).
The singer disclosed both the lyrical, notably in the first three songs, and dramatic sheen of her mezzo, especially in the last song. At once, the velvety sheen of her well-placed, resonant voice that filled the hall endeared her to listeners.
From a poignant lyrical stance that one noticed in the first three songs, Michelle moved to a dramatic course in Hugo Wolf’s opus that conveyed a desperate longing to be home, expressed in moving leaps and powerful tones. The entire section was not just a study in contrast, but also a stunning revelation of vocal lyricism and dramatic fervor.
Fittingly, the next section was labelled Operatic Moments. Here, Michelle sang five operatic arias and a song in English from a movie. In this section, she revealed her dynamism as a mezzo, tackling gloriously lyric, dramatic, and coloratura vocal demands.
In the arias Voi che sapete from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Air de lettres from Massenet’s Werther, she created a ravishing lyrical, mezzo texture for everyone’s listening pleasure. All the more the full dramatic power of her voice was shown in the two arias form Bizet’s Carmen, Habanera and Seguidilla.
Yet another trait she showed was the stunning ability to essay astounding coloratura or running passages. Eloquently, she demonstrated both the warmth of her lower register and her agility in the top running passages in Rossini’s Nacqui all’affano from La Cenerentola.
She ended the section with a Michel Legrand’s A Piece of Sky from the movie Yentl. It is a song that urges one to soar, and she dedicated it to her late father, who she said had foretold that one day she would conquer the operatic world she is in now. It was her father’s fifth death anniversary when she got the first prize in the MET competition last year, she revealed.
A brief respite for the singer followed as Tony Pastor, by popular request, went up on stage to play. He sat and gloriously played Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca, Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu in C sharp minor, and Lecouna’s Valse Romantico, to the delight of the audience.
By popular request, 97-year-old Tony Pastor went up on stage to play Mozart and Chopin on the piano, among others
In the next section, Michelle sang four Philippine songs, titled Mga Awit ng Pagibig (Love Songs) penned by the country’s two foremost composers before the World War II, Nicanor Abelardo and Francisco Santiago. Needless to say, she was at home!
The opener, Bituing Marikit, composed by Nicanor Abelardo, was arranged by National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab. This was followed by two other Abelardo works, Mutya ng Pasig and Ang Aking Bayan. It was a feat to listen to Michelle doing the cadenza in the last song. She concluded the concert with Santiago’s Ano Kaya ang Kapalaran?”
On the piano was versatile pianist Gabby Paguirigan. His tones were crisp and brilliant, and throughout, he had an intelligent and articulate rapport with the singer.
Tony Pastor sings a duet with Michelle Mariposa.
For encore, Michelle sang a duo with Tony Pastor, in Velarde’s Minamahal Kita and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s All I Ask of You. The audience was simply amazed to see a nonagenarian still singing and playing the piano.
Truly, the concert was a joyous musical celebration that greeted the New Year. Happy New Year!
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