Opera minus the viking helmets and pigtails

As promised I took in some opera last weekend. Well, more than some. Two performances and one rehearsal's worth, encompassing two disctinct opera traditions: the more familiar Beijing variety, and the older Kunqu style, purported to be the mother of all forms of Chinese opera.

In case you're now wondering exactly how many forms of Chinese opera there are, I'll tell you now that I don't really know, but it seems that nearly every major dialect group in China has their own style, so there must be quite a few. I've listened to CDs that showcase twelve or so different forms.

But Beijing Opera is the best known outside of China, and that is how I started my weekend, attending the Saturday morning reahersal of an amateur musical group. In this style, the music is driven by drums, gongs and cymbals, but the percussion isn't incessant, rather percussion sections act as punctuation between bits of singing accompanied by two fiddle-like instruments (erhu) and a round and flat plucked instrument like a banjo with a wooden face (yueqin). Even as a world music afficianado, I have to admit that Beijing opera, with it's shrill timbre and use of harsh metallic percussion, has taken me a long time to develop an appreciation for. Something finally sunk in at this rehearsal, which I had never noticed before, namely that the cymbals and wood block drums each have two tones. Thus the clash and clatter of the percussive sections began to take form for me as a dialogue of sounds. Just like the drumming in a rock group is largely a matter of play between the contrasting tones of the snare and the bass drums, so chinese opera percussion plays with two cymbal crashes, and two different pitches of wooden clapper type sounds. With music, just as with language, the ear really does take time to develop a sensitivity to the logic and feel of a new culture.

The rehearsal was just music, but, of course, the point of Beijing opera is that it is a performance that combines music, singing, acrobatics, dance and dialogue, and that is what I took in Saturday night at the Taipei Eye. This venue is half theater and half living museum. As you enter you get to watch the performers as they apply their make-up in the lobby, accompanied by the musicians as they warm-up. During intermissions and after the show the performers chat with the audience and will pose for pictures.

While Beijing opera is something of a dying art, it retains a foothold in Taiwan due to a significant level of government sponsorship. Those familiar with the politics of the Taiwan straits will understand why the Kuomindang, or nationalist party, made a point of cultivating the quinttessential Chinese performance art form after their relocation to Taiwan. Now that the Kuomindang is no longer the sole voice in Taiwanese politics, and the new voices of the younger generation assert their Taiwanese identity in opposition to the Chinese identity imposed by the Kuomindang, the status of government funding for preserving Chinese heritage may come into question. But for now, new generations of actors and musicians are being trained, and were even exported to the mainland during the period after the Cultural Revolution when native lineages of opera-masters had been cut-off.*

Well enough about politics. On to the performance, which was fantastic! Kudos to the venue for supplying the orignal text and both English and Japanese translations on screens adjacent to the stage. The performance was a section of the opera version of The Journey to the West, which is one of the major classics in Chinese fiction. It's an allegorical tale of Buddhist enlightenment, following a monk as he travels from China to India to collect and translate Buddhist sutras. Along the way he picks of some magical animal guardians (very Joseph Campbell) who become his disciples on the Buddhist path. The most famous of these guardians is the mischievious and nearly invincible Monkey King. This character is the favourite of generations of Chinese readers, and truly comes to life on the Beijing opera stage. In the segment I viewed, he has to save the monk from a spider spirit and her minions. The level of acrobatic skill that these actors and actresses possess is beyond astounding. Backflips, front flips, hand springs and cartwheels become ho-hum after the first three minutes. The audience saves its oohs and ahs for things like double flips that land in the splits. The biggest crowd pleaser was a fight scene in which the actress playing the spider spirit leapt into the air and unleashed a double kick, neatly knocking two thrown spears out of the air into the hands of her minions. She did this about 10 times in a row, and only once did a minion even have to take a step to the side to receive her pass. The Monkey King prevails in the end, of course, but I think the spider spirit won the hearts of the audience by a slight margin.

In contrast, Sunday afternoon's viewing of Kunqu opera was very tame, though the setting was for more authentic than the targeted-for-tourists performance at Taipei Eye. Kunqu is considered the most refined of all opera forms, and the music will quickly capture the hearts of most listeners. Yes, the singing is quite shrill, but highly melodic and expressive. The real allures of Kunqu, however, are the romance, lush costumes, and the poetry of the lyrics. This performance, true to the roots of the form, took place in a tea house setting. Given the slow pace of Kunqu, it is best to enjoy it with refreshments and company. Quite talking during the performance is acceptable, though everyone comes to attention for the best passages, and for the climax. Fortunately, some of my acquaintances from Saturday's rehearsal were there to offer some polite conversation. Another stroke of good fortune was that this opera was based on a famous historical tale that has been recreated in countless literary forms, the tale of Yang Gui Fei. The plot follows the love affair of an Emperor and his favorite concubine, Yang Gui Fei, until her execution at the hands of some soldiers in revolt. Knowing the plot ahead of time is key, because Kunqu is sung in an archaic dialect, and even with the text projected on a screen, modern audiences have trouble with some of the characters. Obviously, the challenge is multiplied for us non-Chinese, and this time there was no translation. Still, it was very enjoyable, and in the passages that I could make sense of, the poetry of the language was quite evident. If you can get your hands on a documentary film about Kunqu, or video of a performance with subtititles, I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a feel for the acme of refinement in Chinese performance. For those who need a little more kick in their entertainment, a video of Beijing opera might be the thing. Of course, if musical theater has never been your thing, the brief intro I've provided here is probably all you need, if you happen to have even made it this far, that is.

Well, that's it for the big opera weekend. I think next weekend involves more hiking, but I'll have to check with my activities coordinator to be sure. Classes continue as usual, and my only regret is that I don't have more time to keep learning this thorny language. Only 3 more weeks in Taiwan, then I'm off to mainland to see Lianting. She promises to keep my language skills sharp once classes end, but I do like the feeling of progress that one gets from this intensive study format.

* Upon further investigation, it turns out that the real opera professionals are not in Taiwan, but still hanging out on the mainland, despite the cultural revolution. The Taiwanese did play an important role in revitalizing many Chinese art forms by acting as patrons for mainland masters who were at best ignored, and at worst reviled, during the cultural revolution. Many were paid to come to Taiwan to perform and teach, which allowed them to financial freedom to continue to practice and promote their art back home. Thus, the oft-heard myth that opera masters in Taiwan saved opera on the mainland is false, but probably emerged as a misunderstanding of the more complex relationship between artistic production and patronage.