OPM icon Claire dela Fuente passes away at 62

by Robert Requintina, Manila Bulletin

OPM icon Claire dela Fuente passed away due to cardiac arrest this morning, March 30. She was 62.

Dela Fuente’s passing was confirmed by composer/producer Jonathan Manalo who is close to the family, according to a report by ABS-CBN.

Dela Fuente is the popular singer behind the immortal OPM songs “Sayang,” “Nakaw Na Pag-Ibig,” and “Minsan Minsan” in the 1980s.

During an exclusive interview in 2017, Dela Fuente said that she was thrilled to hear her songs on the radio on weekends. “Naririnig ko yan. Proud ako dahil ilang arttist ba ang may ganyan? Kokonti lang talaga kami.”

Dela Fuente also said that while her song “Sayang” is very popular, her biggest-selling record is “Minsan Minsan.”

“Yung ‘Minsan Minsan’ yun talaga ang nagconfirm sa akin sa stardom bilang sikat na singer,” she said.

Dela Fuente was discovered by noted composer George Canseco when she joined a singing contest at the age of 15. “Member ng board of judges si George nun sabi nya gusto mo bang kumanta sa commercial? Ako ang original voice sa Hope cigarettes commercial.”

When asked what she did with her first paycheck for her debut single “Sayang,” Dela Fuente said: “Naku ang liit lang nun! Ibinigay ko sa nanay ko pandagdag sa baon ko.” –

Sought to give advice to upcoming singers, Dela Fuente said: “Napakahirap kasi ngayon sa showbiz. If you want to succeed sa career, kailangan mo talagang mag-focus. At saka dapat alam mo ang sarili mo at realistic ka. Kung hindi ka naman ganun kagaling, paano? Kung hindi magaling, move on na. Sa ibang career na tayo pumunta. Ganun yun eh. Sa lahat ng bagay, pati sa negosyo, destiny rin ‘yan.”

In those days, Dela Fuente revealed she had cold war with rival singers Imelda Papin and Eva Eugenio.

“May iringan din kami nun. Mga bata pa kami nun syempre iba ang ugali namin. Pero ngayon, wala na yun. Nagkikita pa rin kaming tatlo,” she said.

Nico Dostal - His Music and His Life

 

Nico Dostal (full name: Nikolaus Josef Michael Dostal) (27 November 1895 – 27 October 1981) was an Austrian composer who later specialised in operetta and film music.

Dostal was born in Korneuburg, Lower Austria, and was the nephew of composer Hermann Dostal. He initially studied law at the University of Vienna, but turned to studying music at the Academy for Church Music in Klosterneuburg, and made a name for himself when his Great Mass in D major premiered in Linz in 1913.

After participating in World War I, Dostal worked as the theatre Kapellmeister in Innsbruck, St. Pölten, Vienna, Chernivtsi and Salzburg, before moving to Berlin in 1924, where he turned his hand to secular music. He worked in music publishing and as a freelance arranger for Oscar Straus, Franz Lehár and Robert Stolz, among others.

Whilst working as a Kapellmeister and composer, Dostal wrote the music for the film The Emperor's Waltz (1933) and enjoyed great success with his first operetta Clivia. This was followed by Die Vielgeliebte (1934) (The Much-Loved), Die ungarische Hochzeit (1939) (The Hungarian Wedding), and numerous pieces of film music.

In 1946 Dostal moved to Vienna, then in 1954 to Salzburg, where he continued to devote himself to composition, writing there among other pieces the chamber musical So macht man Karriere (1961) (How To Make a Career). Dostal also composed church music along with operettas and film music.

In 1942 he married the opera singer Lillie Claus, by whom he had one son, Roman Dostal, later a conductor. Dostal died in Salzburg, where he is buried in a grave of honour in the main cemetery, the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Works

Operettas

Die exzentrische Frau, 1922 (The Eccentric Woman)

Lagunenzauber, 1923 (Lagoon Magic)

Clivia, 1933

Die Vielgeliebte, 1934 (The Much-Loved)

Prinzessin Nofretete, 1936 (Princess Nefertiti)

Extrablätter, 1937 (Extra Sheets)

Monika, 1937

Die ungarische Hochzeit, 1939 (The Hungarian Wedding)

Die Flucht ins Glück, 1940 (The Flight into Happiness)

Die große Tänzerin, 1942 (The Great Dancer)

Eva im Abendkleid, 1942 (Eva in Evening Dress)

Manina, 1942

Verzauberte Herzen, 1946 (Enchanted Hearts)

Ein Fremder in Venedig, 1946 (A Stranger in Venice)

Süße kleine Freundin, 1949 (Sweet Little Girlfriend)

Zirkusblut, 1950 (Circus Blood)

Der Kurier der Königin, 1950 (The Queen's Courier)

de:Doktor Eisenbart, 1952 (Dr. Eisenbarth)

de:Der dritte Wunsch, 1954 (The Third Wish)

Liebesbriefe Operette, 1955 (Love Letters Operetta)

So macht man Karriere, 1961 (How To Make A Career)

Rhapsodie der Liebe, 1963 (Rhapsody of Love)

Der goldene Spiegel (The Golden Mirror)

Don Juan und Figaro oder Das Lamm des Armen, 1990 (Don Juan and Figaro, or the Lamb of the Poor)

Film music

Jedem seine Chance, 1930 (To Each, His Chance)

Three Days Confined to Barracks (1930)

Headfirst into Happiness (1931)

The Emperor's Waltz (1933)

The Cabbie's Song (1936)

Der Optimist, 1938, with Theo Lingen (The Optimist)

Mordsache Holm, 1938 (The Holm Murder Case)

Thirteen Chairs (1938)

Heimatland, 1939, with Wolf Albach-Retty (Homeland)

Das Lied der Wüste, 1939, with Zarah Leander, Gustav Knuth (The Desert Song)

The Vulture Wally (1940)

Black on White (1943)

Glück bei Frauen, 1944, with Johannes Heesters (Luck/Happiness with Women)

Child of the Danube (1950)

Spring on Ice (1951)

Das Herz einer Frau [de], 1951 (The Heart of a Woman)

Seesterne [de], 1952 (Sea Stars)

A Night in Venice (1953)

Die Ungarische Hochzeit, 1969, with Maria Schell (The Hungarian Wedding)

This Polish wartime composer’s music lay buried in a suitcase ...

 

... in his garden. Now, it lives again.

Polish wartime composer's music lay hidden in suitcase for years. Picture: iStock

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

Until after his death, the score for Polish composer Ludomir Różycki’s forgotten violin concerto lay buried in a suitcase in the garden of his deserted Warsaw home.

Amid the countless horrors of the Second World War were policies designed to try to extinguish Poland’s cultural identity, from its thriving music scene to its treasured artworks.

During the Nazi occupation, thousands of Polish artists were killed, several historical artefacts were looted, and many musicians and orchestras were forced to go underground in the face of a cultural genocide.

Ludomir Różycki, a Polish composer, belonged to a group of music-makers who, after the First World War, sought to reinvigorate their country’s music. He found great success with his ballet Pan Twardowski, which became the first Polish large-scale ballet to be performed abroad.

Różycki began work on his Violin Concerto in 1944, the summer of the Warsaw Uprising – an operation to liberate Warsaw from German occupation.

It became clear that Różycki and his family urgently needed to find a safe haven. They fled their home in Warsaw, but not before Różycki had hidden the manuscript in a suitcase and buried it at the bottom of his garden.

Janusz Wawrowski premiered Różycki’s Violin Concerto in 2018. Picture: Fabrizio Maltese

Różycki’s family home didn’t survive the traumatic uprising. After the war, he found work teaching and composing in Katowice, some 300km south-west of the Polish capital, and had resigned himself to the loss of the concerto.

Years later, construction workers clearing the ruins of his house came across the unexpected piece of history. The scores inside found their way to the archives of Poland’s National Library, where they lay forgotten until very recent years.

In 2018, violinist Janusz Wawrowski came across the scores and was mesmerised. “It was some years ago that I first encountered fragments of the manuscript,” says Wawrowski, who is one of Poland’s leading classical violinists.

“This wonderful work spoke to me immediately, and the thought was planted in my head that, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it should be reborn and enjoyed by audiences around the world.”

With the help of a researcher and much scouring of the archives, Wawrowski managed to piece the work together and track down the missing, opening 87 bars of the orchestrated full score.

Working with pianist and composer Ryszard Bryła, he set about reworking the concerto, editing the solo part to fit comfortably under a violinist’s fingers. The project took several years, and in 2018, Wawrowski eventually premiered the opulent, post-Romantic concerto to a live audience.

“The result, we hope,” says Wawrowski, “Is as close to Różycki’s original thinking as possible…

Read more: 10 incredible photos of composers’ original pianos >

“To me, the concerto is full of the energy and life of Warsaw before the war, and I think the composer was trying to conjure up and convey this positive energy as he wrote it in 1944 – a very dark time, as the artillery of the Nazis rained down on the city,” the violinist adds.

Now, the concerto has been officially released as a recording, in a new album paired with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. While the latter has long been one of the world’s favourite violin concertos, the Różycki was never performed in the composer’s lifetime, and assumed lost by the composer himself, who died in 1953 before it was rediscovered.

“Looking back at the turbulent history of our civilisation and at times of unrest, we see that culture and art have always played an essential role in humanity,” Wawrowski says. “Artists, in the face of sad realities, have consciously used their creative power to produce works bringing both hope and joy.

“This is the message of the two violin concertos recorded on this album. Both were written at very difficult moments in the lives of their creators – Tchaikovsky was seeking refuge in composition after the painful breakdown of his marriage.”

Wawrowski adds: “It is incredible that Różycki’s concerto was written in the darkest times and carries such positive energy. In spite of the daily reality engulfing the composer, his spirit of hope for a better future was well and truly still alive.”

German Language Course in Davao City/Deutsche Sprache Kurs in Davao City

 

Nicole Kidman’s husband claims ‘violence at the opera'...

... as details of etiquette attack revealed

Sydney Opera House audience member ‘whacked’ Nicole Kidman with his program in standing ovation dispute. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

Keith Urban claims “violence at the opera” after his wife, actor Nicole Kidman, found herself the victim of a Sydney Opera House audience member’s bewildering rage.

Actor Nicole Kidman was “whacked” by an angry opera audience member brandishing a program, her husband, singer Keith Urban, has alleged in a radio interview.

Wanting to show their appreciation for Opera Australia’s acclaimed production of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, the pair joined their fellow opera lovers at Sydney Opera House in a standing ovation for the night’s star performers.

But one man, sitting behind the couple, grew irritated with their enthusiasm and told them to sit back down, according to Urban. Wanting to show his appreciation for the cast, Urban refused and carried on standing and clapping.

“We were sitting down with Nic’s mum and we were clapping,” Urban said on Australia’s The Kyle & Jackie O Show on KIIS FM radio. “It was a bloody great performance, and everyone was cheering and cheering.

“I looked around and I see a few people standing and a few more and I thought ‘Oh, I’m getting up’. And then this guy behind me just whacked Nic, like really hit her, with the program.”

Kidman then allegedly told Urban that the aggrieved Lehár lover had “just hit me”.

Urban added: “I was like, ‘What?! Violence at the opera!’ It’s a bit of a pickle I was in because I’m a husband and you want to defend your wife, but it took a lot of restraint. I was pretty upset.”

Read more: Tourists who paid £1,400 to watch Andrea Bocelli complain he sang a ‘boring’ opera >

The Hollywood star enjoyed a night at the opera in Sydney. Picture: Instagram/Nicole Kidman

Urban explained that he did not know standing ovations weren’t usual practice at the Opera House, as he had never attended an opera before.

The pair enjoyed their night out with Kidman’s mum, after completing mandatory quarantine, in Sydney, where live performances can now take place again with social distancing and mask-wearing.

After the incident, Urban called over their bodyguards to escort Nicole and her mum out of the venue. The opera house’s security also intervened, and police were soon summoned.

“Police have been told a 53-year-old man and a 67-year-old man were both attending the entertainment centre when an argument broke out. Officers spoke to both men and no further action was taken,” NSW Police had said in a statement.

After the incident was all cleared up, Nicole and Keith stayed behind at the venue so they could greet the star singers backstage.

Opera Australia boss, Lyndon Terracini, led the couple through to the stage door, where they took a photo with Australian-Italian tenor Virgilio Marino.

“Thank you Opera Australia! So beautiful to be back at the theatre,” Kidman posted in a message to her Instagram Stories, adding: “Making my mumma happy at The Merry Widow.”

Never a dull night at the opera...