Remarkable Messages to the Walang Sugat Revival of Samahang Balagtas

Teodoro F. Valencia, Zarzuela Foundation President, journalist and philanthropist

This, the second season of the immortal zarzuela, “Walang Sugat” is probably the most encouraging endorsement of zarzuela as dramatic art form. The Zarzuela Foundation invested some Php 350, 000 in the initial season of this zarzuelas revival movement. This second season should prove that the investment is starting to pay off. This time, the foundation is not called upon to strain its resources to push the project. Like a father, Zarzuela Foundation looks on while his offspring walks by itself, wobbly at first, but with promise of firm steps in the years to come.

The Zarzuela Foundation has started various projects calculated to revive zarzuela as a Philippine dramatic art form – researches on the zarzuela, support for the staging of other zarzuela after “Walang Sugat”, the maintenance of a permanent secretariat for exchange of views and information on zarzuela, and a nation- wide zarzuela- writing contest. Hopefully, the Foundation will stage the winning Zarzuela within 1973.

This, the season of zarzuela is a community effort. Civic and art associations have joined forces to reshow “Walang Sugat”, symbolic of the continuity of the national effort to keep alive the zarzuela movement. Pacifica Cultural Productions, Inc. spearheads this year’s presentation at the Cultural Center of Manila. Among the staunchest supporters is the “Samahang Balagtas”, an organization that counts on Tagalog Congressmen and champions of the Filipino tongue as member- organizers.

Zarzuela lives on. It is our hope that we can keep alive this flame that we may pass it on to our children and their children after them.

Dr. Herminio Velarde, Jr., Project Director of Pacifica Productions

And now, in these mid- months of 1972, in the world of performance arts, we arrive at the Second Season of a joint work of revival—the revival production of the immortal zarzuela “Walang Sugat”, the enduring creation of Severino Reyes (Lola Basyang) and Prof. Fulgencio Tolentino.

The seventeen performances behind the present season of this much- accepted production constituted the testing ground for the zarzuela in these times. As we reach and now are in the Second Season, it is evident that testing ground was safely trodden, and one may now speak of the zarzuela as a Filipino theater art- form here to stay.

The Zarzuela Foundation, under the leadership of Mr. Teodoro F. Valencia, its President, together with the members of its Board of Trustees, is to be credited for much of the accomplishment so far. The Pacifica Cultural Productions, which has served as an implementing arm of the Foundation, in the initial, pioneering efforts of revival, has identified itself with the production “Walang Sugat” and its evident success. The support of civic groups, and the cultural community as a whole, is of course, in the final analysis, the determining factor in the progress of the zarzuela revival movement.

In the Second Season, the “Samahang Balagtas” is to be congratulated for the large role it shares in realizing the plans of the Zarzuela Foundation and the Pacifica Cultural Productions to bring ”Walang Sugat” to wider and wider audience. The Bacolor Community Foundation and the Manila Police Trust Fund also share the credit for the Second Season’s realization. The managements and personnel of institutions like the DBP, PNB, GSIS, PVTA, the Department of Public Works and Communications, Presidential Reorganization Commission, as well as the leaders and members of the Knights of Columbus- Freemasons- to all of them, due credit is now a matter of record.

It would seem, based on the progress of the revival movement, that the coming years will witness the re- efflorescence of the Filipino Zarzuela. In this visualization, the “Samahang Balagtas” looms as a significant element.