TEXT: Lee Ou-fan
The operatic production of “The Chinese Orphan” 趙氏孤兒at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on Mach 24 & 25 ( I attended the second performance on March 25 by the second cast) was, in all appearances, a spectacular success. The ovation from the audience testified to it. However, to my ears, it raises two serious concerns. Firstly, since the opera, newly composed by Lei Lei 雷蕾 is adapted from a well-known classical tale, “The Orphan of Zhao”, which was among the first Chinese literary works to be translated into European languages, it raises the question of lineage to the Chinese tradition: To what extent should a contemporary rendition owe its conception and execution to this cultural inheritance? Secondly, if one disregards this primary concern by arguing that all traditions are now subject to reinterpretations by modern means, then how does one measure its original contribution to the contemporary operatic repertoire and by what modern standards?
To my ears and eyes, the current production is quite derivative, lacking in originality. My way of making this judgment is to compare it with another operatic work I have seen, “The Poet Li Bai” 詩人李白, by another Chinese composer, Guo Wenjing 郭文景. The latter work is more original and impressive because it perked my interest and curiosity and gave me a strong urge to see and hear it again. (Indeed I watched it twice, as it turned out, first in Colorado and then in Shanghai and liked it even more.) To my mind, that contemporary opera is already a minor classic.
Let’s leave the first issue aside and concern ourselves only with the second. My experience of hearing “The Chinese Orphan” can also be called “derivative”: Where did I hear this music, a melody here and a harmonic construction there, before? Why did its few traces of originality get increasingly “watered down”? My wife, who is by no means a Western opera fan, said it sounded like a musical, not an opera. What is the essence of musical (for instance, “The Phantom of the Opera”)? A simple answer: at least two or three “sing-able” theme songs that one can hum along and recall afterwards. In other words, the melodies must be easily pleasing. The current trend of new compositions of serious operas, on the other hand, is just the opposite: it strives for new and original conception and formal/technical execution (even as it pays tribute to old traditions). The examples are too numerous to be listed here.
Even if we do not focus on originality, I would argue that the “mixture” between old and new has to be so alluring as to beguile my ears. Frankly, what I heard that night was some very uninteresting, derivative Puccini, particularly Puccini’s opera “Turandot.” Even the production itself, with its lavish costumes and scenery, reminds me of, say, Zeffirelli’s production of “Turandot”. To make things worse, the libretto of “The Chinese Orphan” (by Zou Jingzhi 鄒靜之) doesn’t really help, as it sounds too colloquial and full of contemporary Chinese idioms, some of which sound rather awkward and foreign. To give one small example: the phrase, 高懸的絕望(literally a “despair hanging high”)-- how idiomatic is it when spoken in Chinese? Even as a poetic metaphor it sounds rather awkward, if not clicheish.
To me an operatic libretto derived from the classical Chinese tradition should make its words more cadensed and “classical” sounding. Again my standard of reference is “The Poet Li Bai”, which in both the English and Chinese versions of the libretto brings out a lofty cadence.
I went to this production with an open mind, since I had no previous knowledge of its existence. When the Prologue started, my ears perked up, because I heard something quite original behind its heavy (Richard) Straussian orchestration, as if an original Chinese “voice” were about to break out. Yet that original voice gradually disappeared in the ensuing three acts. I then tried to readjust my ears and listened to its more tuneful segments. Yes, indeed there were a few: such as the aria “My Child, what could we do?” in Act I, Scene1, and a related area, “Leave the Easier Thing to Me” in Act II, Scene 1 (both sung plaintively by mezzo soprano Liang Ning 梁寧). When the young hero, the grown-up Zhao Wu 趙武, finally appears in Act III, I hoped in vain for a great aria for the tenor voice. Too bad, no “Nesum Dorma” here to hum all the way home. The true hero in the opera belongs, of course, to Cheng Ying 程嬰, the medicine man who sacrifices his own child in order to protect and raise this “orphan of Zhao”. The baritone Sun Li 孫礫struggled valiantly to give life to this role, but the music and lyrics didn’t really work in his favor. So, the final recourse seemed to be the staging, which was quite dramatic in the conventional sense. The chorus also sang with vigor and, once again, brought back a certain echo—hence also derivative--from Puccini. One can easily compare the movement of the “masses” in both operas and easily detect the resemblance.
So what is left for this opera to endure the test of time? More lavish productions seem to be the only way. Perhaps the big stage of the opera house inside the National Centre for the Performing Arts of China in Beijing (the “Big Egg”) is the natural place for the opera’s production. Given the limitations of space in the Hong Kong production, the backstage crew deserve credit, especially the stage director Chen Xinyi 陳薪伊, the set designer Gao Guangjian 高廣健, and the light designer Vladimir Lukasevich, who all did a wonderful job. The heavily accented conducting of Lu Jia 呂嘉 seemed to lay all the emphasis on the loud heroic effects, thus missing out on the few soft and lyrical traces (as exemplified in the above-mentioned two arias).
I wish I could give this opera and this performance a more positive review. Probably my opinion belongs in the minority and can be disregarded by all who loved this opera. However, we can all rest assured that after all is said and done, “The Chinese Orphan” is still, in all respects, a much better opera than the poorly written and atrociously bad “Dr. Sun Yat-sen 中山逸仙.” I refrained from writing a review of that opera out of sympathy for those who worked so hard to get it produced and performed.
Performance Reviewed:
The Chinese Orphan
25 March 2012, 7:30pm
Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
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