FAREWELL, SINGAPORE'S MR OPERA: LEOW SIAK FAH (1939-2014)

Singapore's opera community was shocked and saddened by the passing of Mr Leow Siak Fah, Founding Chairman of the Singapore Lyric Opera, on 14 April 2015 in Germany. To many who grew up in Singapore during the 1980s and 1990s, when Western opera was a rarity here, he was Mr Opera himself. He sang the major tenor roles in local productions, while single-handedly cajoling and bankrolling opera in Singapore, first through the National University of Singapore Society, and the Singapore Lyric Theatre (SLT), which became established as the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) in 1999.

He was tenor, director and producer of many of the 1990s SLT productions. Among his favourite roles were Don Jose (Carmen), Alfredo Germont (La Traviata), Rodolfo (La Boheme), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Danilo (The Merry Widow) and Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof). There were two services held at Mount Vernon Sanctuary: 13 April (Monday) was a formal church service while 14 (Tuesday) was a concert service. Many of Singapore's opera community turned up and performed, and so did members of Mr Leow's family, including his beloved wife Dr Ling Ai Ee who played the keyboard, which showed that there are such things as musical genes. 

There were tears, and there were plenty more smiles when the music flowed like champagne in Act One of La Traviata. It was a celebration of his life in music, and we are sure that Mr Leow would not have wanted it any other way.

Malaysian tenor Peter Ong in Londonderry Air,
accompanied by Dr Ling Ai Ee on the piano.

Mr Leow's three grandchildren also sang,
Caitlyn Tan, Leow Tian Ahn and Tian Ping.

Both of Mr Leow's children, Huei Hsien
and Tze Wen touched many hearts with their singing.

Malotte's The Lord's Prayer.

Two teachers from Ossia Music School,
founded by Mr Leow, also performed.

Family friend Dr Raymond Ng, family physician and filk maker,
 brought out many smiles with his humorous and
endearing anecdotes about Mr Leow Siak Fah

Agnus Dei

Tenor Melvin Tan said his generation of singers owed
a debt of gratitude to Mr Leow, as he had inspired them
to go professional. He sang You Raise Me Up.

The ageless soprano Nancy Yuen hit all the
high notes of the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria.

Chinese tenor Yu Jixing in O Sole Mio.

Chinese barione Zhang Feng in
Bizet's Toreador Song (Carmen)

Mezzo-soprano Anna Koor and baritone William Lim
had been the first to sing.

All the singers joined in for the
Brindisi (Drinking Song) from Verdi's La Traviata.

If Mr Leow Siak Fah's life were a performance, he surely deserves a standing ovation. We will all miss you dearly.

FENCES by John Sharpley and Robert Yeo / Opera Viva / Review

FENCES

Opera Viva

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Sunday (19 August 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 August 2012 with the title "Home-grown opera breaks through barriers".

Only the second opera to come out of Singapore, John Sharpley’s Fences with libretto by Robert Yeo finally came to fruition after an eight year gestation. Opera Viva, Singapore’s second opera company, was specifically created to produce this opera about inter-racial love set in the turbulent 1960s of Singapore and Malaysia. The premise of the story was the brainchild of local opera connoisseur Leow Siak Fah, who himself played a major part in Singapore’s first opera, Leong Yoon Pin and Edwin Thumboo’s Bunga Mawar of 1997.

1961: Nora Ibrahim meets
Steven Lee in Malaya Hall, London

There are similarities between the two operas, chiefly a Romeo And Juliet-like love story involving members of families from different stations. While both protagonists of Bunga Mawar were Chinese, Fences sets up further barriers between Steven Lee and Nora Ibrahim, namely race, religion and nationality. Could true love overcome bigotry, chauvinism and politics?

The music by John Sharpley, a Texan who has lived in Singapore for half his life, was gratifyingly tonal. He did not quote or write Asian melodies, but neither could he completely escape from influences by Copland, Bernstein and Britten, which permeated his lyrical outpourings. The orchestration was sumptuous, sparing no details when he tried to simulate an Asian aesthete – scoring erhu, yangqin and dizi for Lee family scenes, with marimba and assorted percussion in the corresponding Malay episodes. 

The final duet at Tanjong Pagar Station:
A hotel is not a home,
so where do we go from here? 

The singers were expertly cast, veteran tenor David Quah and newcomer soprano Akiko Otao clicked surprisingly well. Their acting and body language were totally believable, supported by short but angst-ridden arias What is this Stink called Home? and What Coming Home Means respectively, loaded with powerfully charged words. Behind them, Nomer Son and Satsuki Nagatome (as the Ibrahims), Rueben Lai and Anna Ivanenko (the Lees) were convincing in the portrayals of paternal intransigence and maternal sympathy. 

The Geylang Serai riots:
Steven gets battered and bruised.

The well-honed chorus played a larger role than expected, its appearance inevitably fanning the flames of the heated sentiments of the moment. Where but in the context of this opera can the inflammatory phrases “kurang hajar” (debased person) or “Crush Lee Kuan Yew!” escape the censor’s scissors? The appearance of the first PM, clad in all white, also had the revisionist about it. His broadcast speech of 9 August 1965 was not clothed in regretful tears, but one of indignation and defiance.

9 August 1965: Singapore is booted out;
LKY standing tall,
is defiant rather than tearful.

Malay vs Chinese.
Islam vs Buddhism.
Malaysia vs Singapore.
Never the twain shall meet.

Chandran Lingam’s direction was clear-headed and effective. The two stages on which the sung dialogues of the families took place were representative of the gulfs which people and their societies impose on themselves. Never the twain shall meet; these were the metaphorical fences erected (hence the opera’s title) and stoutly defended to the death.

The sextet of confrontation.

The one major regret of this production was the lack of surtitles. With the orchestra superbly directed by Darrell Ang placed just in front of the stage, the sung English of the amplified singers was often rendered indecipherable and sometimes drowned out. A printed libretto was provided on the second evening, but the small print and dim lighting nullified the thoughtful gesture.

Steven and Nora plan a
new life together... in Australia!

Despite the technical difficulties encountered, Fences, a lesson on conflict, confrontation and ultimately compromise, is something societies that genuinely seek tolerance and forbearance can learn from. Musically and artistically, it represents a significant advance on the earlier efforts of Bunga Mawar. Let us hopefully not wait another 15 years for the next major Singaporean opera.

Akiko Otao as Nora and
David Quah as Steven.

Darrell Ang, John Sharpley and
Robert Yeo get their accolades. 

A Few Words With ROBERT YEO, Librettist of Singapore opera FENCES

The second opera to come out of Singapore,  FENCES by JOHN SHARPLEY and ROBERT YEO, will be unveiled this weekend with two performances at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, produced by OPERA VIVA SINGAPORE and conducted by DARRELL ANG. This marks a watershed moment in Singapore musical history, which is little or no history in the conception and creation of original opera. The story is a familiar one, star-crossed lovers separated by race, religion and in the context of 1965 Singapore and Malaysia, nationality. Will love overcome bigotry and politics? Unlike Romeo and Juliet, we have been promised a happy ending, but everything in between is fair game.

A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT YEO

Librettist of the Singapore opera FENCES

Produced by OPERA VIVA SINGAPORE

18 and 19 August 2012,

Lee Foundation Theatre, 

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

7.30 pm

The story of Fences of the Heart, to use the original name of the opera, came from Singapore’s “Mr Opera” Leow Siak Fah who was himself born in Malaysia and had become a Singaporean. How did you get involved as the librettist of Fences?

It was in 2004 that Siak Fah got me and composer John Sharpley together to ask if we could write an opera. He gave us the idea, the story of Steven Lee and Nora Ibrahim, and asked if we were comfortable with it and we both said “Yes”.  Next, I asked John which came first, the libretto or the music, and he said the former. That answer sealed it, and I started to think about the story and the necessary research.

Like everybody (old enough) remembers the exact day, the exact moment they learnt that President Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963, could you remember exactly what you were doing on 9 August 1965, and how you felt at that time?

On 9 August 1965, two colleagues and I, three Chinese schoolteachers from St Andrew's Secondary School had driven up to Kuala Lumpur in the morning en route to the east coast of Malaya for a holiday. We spent the night in the federal capital and the next morning, we went to visit a friend of mine who managed a bookshop within sight of Pudu Prison. I bantered with him about KL-Singapore relationship which had become fractious, and then he asked, anxiously, “You mean you don't know?” Then he pulled out a copy of the New Straits Times, and the front page headline read, “Singapore is Out.” That was the moment we know that Singapore had separated from Malaysia. All three of us returned home, aborting our planned vacation.

The story of Fences has to do with differences (racial, cultural, socio-economic), separation (physical, emotional, real or imagined), reconciliation and rationalisation. How did you craft your libretto to encompass all these complex and highly contentious issues?

I think my experience writing poems and plays helped a great deal. Though the story, with its Romeo and Juliet parallel appeared clichéd, it sounded real to me. Anyway, I had always wanted to write about the years when Singapore was part of Malaysia and here was an opportunity to write about very traumatic events which suddenly created a new nation. So, in addition to being “caught” in the turmoil, which provided the raw experience, I researched by listening to operas, reading libretti, books and articles.  Among the operas I watched  were Bizet’s Carmen and Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.  One book, in particular, was very useful - A Moment Of Anguish by Albert Lau.

I figured, in a foolhardy way, that as I have written poems and plays, I could try my hand at writing a libretto. I was emboldened by two examples. First, I had worked on writing the text for a musical with Joe Peters (yet to be staged), and second, one of my favourite poets, W.H Auden, had written libretti and worked with composers like Benjamin Britten. 

In writing Fences, I want to be poetic and concrete. There will be no pop sentiments and abstractions like, “I cannot live without you.” Instead, I loaded my lines with concrete images and tough emotion. When Nora, the Malay heroine from Kuala Lumpur first meets Steven, the Chinese boy from Singapore, she teases him with the line, “You have waiting in your eyes,” where an abstraction like waiting is qualified by the specific reference to Steven's eyes. When Steven condemns race as divisive, he sings, “What is this stench called race?” The choruses are equally uncompromising, for example the first Malaya chorus has these lines,

   We must deal with this Singapore problem

   The island south that's like a footsore.

   We can't have it infect our body

   If it turns red outside our door.

I must add that my collaboration with John has been very process-oriented. We talked all the time he was composing, both making many revisions, as we went along over four years of writing. And we did it harmoniously.

Were the characters in the opera modelled after personalities you knew or could identify with? How did you make them come across sympathetic rather than the usual cardboard stereotypes that operas all too frequently portray?

No, they are not modelled after people I know. As a secular person, a believer in multiculturalism, these values inherent in the beliefs would inevitably find their ways into my words. If I made the fathers in Fences villains, I was, in a sense following Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, in which the patriarchs Capulet and Montague are dominant. The mothers are not heard and so I decided to give them voice, sympathetic to the lovers.

The moral of the story: Love Conquers All. Is life that straight-forward or black and white for you?

Love conquers all is never straightforward. After the conquest, it may remain lovely—or loveless. But that is another story.

OPERA VIVA GALA DINNER 2012

Singapore's second opera company, Opera Viva Limited, held its Gala Dinner on Friday (15 June 2012) at the Tanglin Club to raise funds for its biggest project to date, the World Premiere of Singapore's second opera, Fences by John Sharpley (composer) and Robert Yeo (librettist). The opera has had a prolonged gestation of almost eight years, and was inspired by Singapore's biggest opera fanatic Leow Siak Fah. There have been performances  of various arias and scenes to date, but its premiere on 18 and 19 August at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts marks the fruition of a labour of love. The story is a very topical one, that dwells in the rocky and tumultuous of cross-cultural relationships, set in 1960s Singapore and Malaysia. Then, Singapore had courted Malaysia to be part of the Federation only to be ejected, culminating with a famously televised vale of tears on 9 August 1965. This opera, the producers promised, has a happier ending.

Here are some photos of luminaries who were at the dinner, which predictably had a 1960s theme.    

Leow Siak Fah (right) with the "Legend of the Waves", long-time radio DJ and television host of the 1960s and 70s, Larry Lai, whose famous soothing voice made a comeback this evening.

Juliana Lim and Maurine Tsakok (with feather boa).

Librettist Robert Yeo, Dr Ling Ai Ee (Mrs Leow) and Leow Siak Fah.

Singapore's First Lady of Opera, Nancy Yuen (La Yuen) with her husband Toh Weng Cheong, Chairman of Singapore Lyric Opera. Fences is one opera Nancy won't be singing in.

Performers for the evening, tenor Peter Ong and Stephanie Van Driesen.

Soprano Akiko Otai will sing the lead role of Nora in Fences. Her husband, Eric Rubio accompanied her on the piano this evening, On the right is celebrated Filipino tenor Lemuel dela Cruz. 

DJ Larry Lai rolls back the good old days, while Professor Maurine Tsakok is caught in the act in Chubby Checker's Let's Twist Again..

These lava lamps were bought by the evening's guests, with all proceeds going to Opera Viva.

LIM YAU and the SINGAPORE LYRIC OPERA: The Early Years

LIM YAU & 

THE SINGAPORE LYRIC OPERA: 

THE EARLY YEARS 

Twenty years of the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) was no mean feat, however its anniversary celebrations had one glaring absentee, - Lim Yau, who was its long-time artistic director from its earliest days till 2000. He was not even in the audience at the 26 November Gala Concert to join in the revelry. 

PIANOMANIA caught up with him at his new Seletar Hills home, where he nostalgically spoke about the younger and more innocent days of the SLO. 

The Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) was formed in 1990 as the Singapore Lyric Theatre (SLT), which had its origins within the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS) prior to that. What was your earliest involvement with that fledgling opera community in Singapore?

After I was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) in 1985, I was approached by a gentleman whom I often noticed attending post–concert receptions, one with “a man about town” kind of appearance. One day after an orchestral rehearsal, I was whisked off to the Guild House in Kent Ridge for a meeting with a committee chaired by this gentleman. He was Leow Siak Fah (left), a successful businessman whose resourcefulness and entrepreneurial skills knew little bounds. The committee also included Toh Weng Cheong (the present SLO Chairman), the late Mrs Winnie Cheah and a few others. They were a group of opera lovers from the National University of Singapore Society Recreation Committee who wanted to stage their own operas and musicals, and they had asked me to conduct their productions. Being so persuasive, how could I say no? 

What do you remember about the earliest opera productions?

The first production by this NUSS group, in 1985, was Johann Strauss the Younger’s Die Fledermaus, sung in English. Leow would take the lead tenor role of Eisenstein, as he would do for many further productions, and Rosalinde was sung by Lee Soo Bee, then a well-known local soprano. There were parts for the young baritone Eng Meng Chia, a voice student studying overseas at the time, and Alex Abisheganaden (left) who sang the part of Frank, the prison governor. And the non-singing part of Frosch was played by a popular Malaysian actor whose name I cannot remember. 

Just to emphasise the humble beginnings of the opera company that had yet to get its name, there were many unpaid volunteers. For example, the wonderful Mrs Winnie Cheah and Mrs Ling, Leow’s mother-in-law, both lovely Peranakan ladies, sewed all the costumes. I conducted the opera without a fee, and was even asked to pay for my wife’s ticket. Managing on an extremely tight budget was nothing new, as it still is today.

The next production in 1987 was of Verdi’s La Traviata, also sung in English, which introduced the young baritone William Lim (left) – still one of Singapore’s most active singers - as the older Germont. Lehar’s The Land of Smiles soon followed in 1988 and by 1990, the group attempted its most ambitious production, Bizet’s Carmen at Kallang Theatre. Leow, as expected, sang in all the tenor roles, but he also underwrote all the bills. By this time, the committee thought it ripe to formally register as an opera company. Thus the Singapore Lyric Theatre was born, and its first formal production under its aegis was Mozart’s The Magic Flute in 1991. 

As founding director, what were some of your responsibilities like?

In consultation with the company’s board, I helped to determine which operas we were to produce. After the first few productions, we decided to expand the company’s repertoire. In 1992, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville was produced, followed by Verdi’s Rigoletto in 1993, one that was set in 1920s Shanghai. Leow did return, to sing Prince Danilo in Lehar’s The Merry Widow in 1992, opposite Marilyn Hill-Smith. The year 1994 saw the SLO debut of soprano Nancy Yuen (left) in her signature role of Cio Cio San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. I had to audition singers for various parts. I remembered having to travel to Japan and South Korea for the Barber production. It was only in 1997, after resigning from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, that I assumed the post of Music Director, a full-time paying job. 

You also conducted different orchestras for SLO productions. 

The orchestra for the initial productions were formed by members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. SSO was engaged to perform for several productions but involving Singapore’s only professional orchestra invariably incurred a huge cost. In 1996, the production of Gounod’s Faust in the Singapore Arts Festival (starring Warren Mok as Faust and Tian Hao Jiang as Mephistopheles) saw us collaborating with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Flying them in and housing them for the entire duration of the production proved a smaller expense than hiring the SSO itself. I received a lot of flak from my then-employers (SSO) for making that happen. In 1998, I formed the company’s own in-house orchestra, the NUSS-SLT Singapore Opera Orchestra, one dedicated to accompanying opera. [The nucleus of this orchestra later became The Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra (TPCO) and The Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO). The present SLO Orchestra, a free-lance outfit, came much later.] 

Which were some of your most memorable experiences?

Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in collaboration with The British Council in 1997, was our all-round best production. That same year, we undertook Leong Yoon Pin’s Bunga Mawar (left) for the Festival of Asian Performing Arts, the first ever Singaporean opera. It was important that such an endeavour could take place, if only to highlight the state of the arts in Singapore at the time. It was Leong’s first opera and poet laureate Edwin Thumboo’s first libretto, and directed by veteran Chinese theatre director Chua Soo Pong. It was not a great success but it had to be done sometime.

In 1995, one of the board members Robert Tomlin offered to bring in a major tenor soloist for Cavaradossi in SLO’s first production of Puccini’s Tosca. We got Giacomo Aragall (left), arguably one of the ten great tenors of the 20th century for the part. I learnt a lot about conducting opera and accompanying singers from his vast experience, including observing singers, their phrasing and breathing patterns.

Then 58 years old, Aragall was a very nervous personality, one who often hid in his dressing room, coming out only at the very last moment to rehearse. He did pull of one of the best pranks at one rehearsal. In the final scene when Cavaradossi gets shot by the firing squad, he laid for a prolonged period on the stage floor and started adjusting his pants such that a huge bulge appeared on his supine form. Then he said, “That’s how you die cock standing!” Everybody almost died laughing!

20 YEARS OF GRAND OPERA / Singapore Lyric Opera / Review

20 YEARS OF GRAND OPERA
Singapore Lyric Opera
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (26 November 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 November 2010.

For a nation with a negligible opera tradition, the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) has achieved a fair bit in its twenty years. Always cash-strapped and operating within wafer-thin budgets, its productions have often been a credit to its pluck and resourcefulness. For its 20th anniversary gala, highlights from twenty operas, operettas and musicals were packed into an eventful and largely enjoyable 160 minutes.

Using a cast that distinguished more recent productions was a wise choice. The faces were more familiar and voices fresher. The most outstanding moments came in love duets, with Singapore’s “First Lady of Opera” Nancy Yuen and Korean tenor Lee Jae Wook providing stellar performances from La Boheme and Madama Butterfly. Both radiated palpable chemistry and genuine sympathy, and one could be led into imagining this was taking place in a major opera house.

The pairing of Taiwanese soprano Jessica Chen and Korean baritone Song Kee Chang was also convincing in Leoncavallo’s E Allor Perche (I Pagliacci), while local mezzo-soprano Anna Koor and Korean soprano Choo Hi-Myung took the gloss to Offenbach’s Barcarolle (The Tales Of Hoffmann).

(From L) Anna Koor, Lemuel dela Cruz, Jessica Chen,

Leow Siak Fah, Yee Ee Ping, Eric Zhu & Nancy Yuen.

Solo arias also produced many moving minutes. London-based soprano Yee Ee Ping in Puccini’s Vissi D’Arte (Tosca) sounded like she meant every word of it. Veteran baritone William Lim was engaging in his opening introduction from I Pagliacci, and Filipino tenor Lemuel dela Cruz valiantly hit the highest notes of the Flower Song (Gounod’s Faust) despite nursing a cold.

Arias from Puccini’s Turandot registered the highest decibels. It seemed strange that Nessun Dorma was sung before In Questa Reggia, out of sequence in the opera, but the reason was soon apparent. Tenor Lee’s predictably heroic Calaf had to take second place to Chen’s ice-cold Turandot, her frightening intensity was one to raise goosebumps and chill blood.

In an effort to be inclusive, there was a nod to Singapore’s first and only opera to date, Leong Yoon Pin’s Bunga Mawar. Yuen and Lim did the honours for the lyrical duet Can I Believe The Sentiment Of Song.

A toast should be raised to Leow Siak Fah, (left) SLO’s founding Chairman who single-handedly bankrolled early productions while casting himself in leading tenor roles. In a final hurrah, he relived an imperious youth in Don Jose (Carmen), Count Danilo (The Merry Widow), Tevye (Fiddler On The Roof) and The Student Prince with great spirit if not in best voice. This septuagenarian businessman will at least go down as the greatest amateur opera singer in Singapore history.

Brindisi (La Traviata) - Let's drink to the SLO!

The SLO Orchestra conducted by Eric Zhu provided excellent support, with concertmaster Foo Say Ming playing several exquisite violin solos, and Marc Rochester dusting cobwebs off Esplanade’s underused Klais organ in excerpts from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Young voices from the SLO’s three choirs also contributed significantly to the sense of occasion.

As celebrations go, there were three drinking songs, from Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Romberg’s The Student Prince and to close on a high, Verdi’s La Traviata. There should be much to look forward to in SLO’s next twenty years.