Opera ‘A Little Manila Diary’ performed by SF Girls Chorus

The choral opera, commissioned by SFGC, was composed by Matthew Welch over two years. SFGC

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) concluded its season with the premiere of the choral-opera “Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary” at the Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture in San Francisco on June 16.

Based on the diary of Filipina immigrant Angeles Monrayo, the opera was conducted by SFGC Artistic Director Valerie Sainte-Agathe and featured Filipino American guest artists, including stage director Sean San José, guitarist Florante Aguilar, violinist Patti Kilroy, and percussionist Levy Lorenzo. Angeles’ granddaughter Patricia An Liston-Abujen participated in the opera’s development.

“The journey of this strong and resilient young woman resonates with our singers who are about the same age,” Sainte-Agathe told SF Classical Voice. “The challenges she faced are also the ones our generation still faces: discrimination and violence simply because they are women or because they are coming from another country. It is powerful to highlight how she overcomes all those challenges and creates a new life for herself and her family.”

The choral opera “Tomorrow’s Memories: A Little Manila Diary” is based on the 1924-28 diary of Filipina immigrant Angeles Monrayo.

The music tries to capture both the feelings of a child and the intersections of sound in 1920s Filipino American communities.

The choral opera, commissioned by SFGC, was composed by Matthew Welch over two years. “Her tale is set as a metaphor,” says Welch, “for the unique cultural forming of [the] Philippine American diaspora and also as a mirror held up to our current sociopolitical issues of equality in immigration, labor, gender, and culture.”lank”>

“Though this is not a Filipino production of this historic Filipino diary, ‘Tomorrow’s Memories’ is led by an all-‘person of color’ artistic team, with all the resonances of our immigrant lineage, migrant past, and ‘power to the people’ ethos and beliefs,” the choral-opera’s Stage Director Sean San Jose shared.

Angeles Monrayo (1912–2000) began her diary in 1924, a few months before she and her father and older brother moved from a sugar plantation in Waipahu to labor leader Pablo Manlapit’s strike camp in Honolulu.

The family immigrated from Romblon in the Visayas and after living in Hawaii settled in Stockton, California, in a neighborhood known as Little Manila.

You may also like:

Docu being made on 1924 massacre of 16 Filipino strikers in Hawaii

Stockton’s Little Manila Center vandalized

The writing reflects a young Filipina girl’s view of immigrant life in Hawaii and central California in the turbulent first decades of the 20th century. While she recounts hardships, her diary of “everyday things” also recalls school and church, music and dancing, movies and falling in love.

(Future performances may be announced as the scheduled ones had to be cancelled due to Covid infections in the cast.)