MANILA, Philippines - Stage actor José Mari Avellana was in pain and was in great danger when he finished a gripping performance of Mitch Albom?s play ?Tuesdays with Morrie.?

According to director Bart Guingona?s account published in this paper a week ago, the actor vomited what looked like a bucket of blood just before curtain call. The amazing thing was, he still finished the performance even if, halfway through the poignant play, his stomach was already bleeding profusely.

When Guingona asked for a doctor in the house, everyone thought it was part of the show.

The story of Avellana?s resolve to finish a play even if he was bleeding inside is typical, if not symbolic, of people in the arts. Like it or not, it was an act of singular heroism. It illustrates what people in the arts would go through to mount and finish a performance even at great risk to life and limb.

When a performance begins, the theater is divided into three distinct worlds.

There is a separate world for audiences where they are all seated comfortably waiting for the performance to unravel. There is the stage, which is the object of fright for artists. Depending on the quality of their performance, that stage is where they are hailed by audiences or torn apart by critics.

Dramatic

The least-known world is backstage. Many things can happen backstage and, in varying degrees, they can prove more dramatic than the actual performance itself.

Like Cecile Licad sobbing backstage before a Bonn recital, contemplating a marriage that suddenly ended after 10 years. She wanted to cancel the performance, but decided to go on with it.

The recital ended in an unprecedented standing ovation, with the audience unaware of what the artist had gone through before that performance.
After the concert, Licad called her mom, Rosario, and said: ?Mama, I just realized I don?t need a husband. I only need my music.?

In March this year, celebrated German cellist Alban Gerhardt went through a big trial while in the middle of a grueling concert and recording commitments in Germany and England, when his mother passed away.

His first instinct was to cancel, but he also remembered his mother?s admonition not to cancel no matter how urgent. And so, following his mother?s wishes, the cellist agreed to finish the concert.

Gerhardt recalled his unforgettable concert thus: ?My mother lives on in my music. That?s the reason she didn?t want me to come back to Berlin even when she felt her end was approaching. She wanted me to continue playing.?

Licad had the same experience when her father, Dr. Jesus Licad, died a few years ago. She had a recital at Townhall in New York when she learned her father was dying. Then she got another urgent message: ?Don?t cancel any concert.?

Doctor Licad passed away during her recital, and she rushed home just in time for the memorial service, where she played Chopin on an electric piano. That was the first time I saw Cecile perform with tears falling down her cheeks.

Quiet passing

In 2001, I thought that one performance of Alexandru Tomescu at Meralco Theater was going to be canceled as I failed to see conductor Red Romero rehearse with the orchestra.

What I didn?t know was, while the orchestra was rehearsing with last-minute substitute Hermie Ranera, the conductor-impresario was fighting for his life in a hospital. But he made sure he didn?t die on the night of the concert.

After the standing ovation for the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos, Maestro Romero quietly passed away. Even in his last dying moments, he made sure his death didn?t upstage the performance.

Sacrificing for the arts is not the monopoly of artists. Parents and relatives of artists work to death, pawn land titles, and do unmentionable multitasking to make sure their children realize their artistic pursuits and thus ?redeem? their sacrifices.

You have heard of concert organizers who push through with unsponsored concerts and, after the standing ovations, is left with a trail of debts and court cases.

Guingona probably spoke for everyone in the arts when he reflected after seeing Avellana?s sacrifice on stage: ?An artist working himself to the bones to make ends meet, living a hand-to-mouth life to entertain and edify others. Is it worth it? There?s too little money in it. Little or no fame. Yet some of us continue to do it and some of us die doing it. Most of us know there?s no financial security in it and only get by on its promise of spiritual certitude. Are we insane??

I must say there is a streak of madness in every artist and that extends to people who make certain musical and theatrical events possible.

Here and there

Prize-winning Filipino cellist Victor Michael Coo returns at BDO Francisco Santiago Hall with Chinese pianist Ya-Shin Wu on June 30. Their program includes Schumann?s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70; Shostakovich?s Sonata in D Minor, Op. 40; Rachmaninoff?s Sonata in G Minor; and Piazolla?s ?Le Grand Tango.?

Fresh from her Vienna triumph in ?Turandot,? soprano Rachelle Gerodias will team up with a classical guitarist on July 12 along with pianist Mary Anne Espina.

Conductor Helen Quach returns with the Manila Symphony Orchestra in August with pianist Cristine Coyiuto as soloist in a Schumann concerto. After her MSO commitment, Quach conducts the Philippine Philharmonic in the October 2008 run of ?La Boheme? at the CCP courtesy of the Philippine Opera Company.