Saturday, November 25, 2006 Another curtain call for Bicong By Dennis Dungao
HE WAS named after a great grand father, a revolutionary during the Spanish regime who was martyred because of his idealism, Captain Isabelo Del Rosario. His father was the top official of Angeles when it was officially chartered as a city in 1964, the late mayor Rafael Del Rosario. Isabelo “Bicong” del Rosario II is a fourth generation Del Rosario, an illustrious old family in the city. He had a management degree from Delasalle University, but what he pursued in life is what he loves most? the performing arts.
Bicong supplemented his ingrain skills in the performing arts by training at the UST (University of Sto. Tomas) Conservatory of Music, The MET (Manila Metropolitan Theater), and in Stuggart in Germany under the tutelage of such personalities as Irma Potenciano, Dr. Myrna Lopez, Rieje Yabe, Cornelia Schmidt, Marc Thomas and Thomas Wolfgang. Bicong’s experience in theater is as massive his track record in singing. His early experience in theatre was performing at the Manila Metropolitan Theater, with major roles on Broadway hits like “My Fair Lady”, “Great White Way”, and Filipino originals “Dahil Sa Iyo”, “Sarummbanngi”, and “Egawan”. From 1985-1989, he toured Southeast Asia with his band Primecut, as he did solo singing too at Hotel Nikko Manila Garden, Hotel Equitorial in Penang Malaysia, among many others. He did modeling also for PLDT, Coke, Colgate and Rejoice shampoo commercials in the ‘80s as well as dubbing for TV and radio shows.
In 1994-2001, Bicong got to finally perform in the international ring when he became a part of Cameroon Mackintosh’s “Miss Saigon”, staged in Germany at the Musikal Halle. From then on, “Miss Saigon” took him to Manchester in England, Dublin in Ireland and Edinburgh in Scotland. His role on the play was that of Commissar Thuy, Kim’s (the lead role in the play) Vietnamese boyfriend, before she got to be acquainted with an American GI.
Bicong now sees himself as semi-retired from actual performance. It was a couple of years ago or so when he had a vision and founded The Academy of Performing Arts in Barangay San Angelo in Angeles City. Bicong’s another curtain call this time in life is to educate Pampanga on the beauty of the arts. His ultimate dream is to establish “Little Broadway”; a compact, but loaded theatre located at the fourth floor of the Kapitan Isabelo Del Rosario Building - a pet project at that. He so desired that children of this generation get to open their eyes on the arts and culture, and that he wants to negate the assumption that theatre and singing were only reserved for the upper class. Bicong understands that this task requires his best performance yet? it is a monumental task he so took willingly - for arts’ sake.
