By ZHANG HONG (chinatoday 2005)
related article - Kunqu: Humankind's Common Cultural Heritage
At the head of the first UN list of 19 “Oral and Intangible Heritages of Humanity” published in 2001, was China’s Kunqu opera. The Palace of Eternal Youth has since been hailed as the best kunqu ever produced and the ultimate test of performing excellence.
Acclaim Accumulated Over 200 Years
The 17th and 18th centuries were the golden age of Kunqu, a time when Chinese people had a collective reverence for this folk opera. The scale and scope of Kunqu passion during these 200 years is unmatched in Chinese theatrical history. According to Lin Zhaohua, director of the Beijing People’s Art Theatre: “Only Kunqu can compare with Greek tragedy, or any other world classic performance art.” Taiwan writer Bai Xianyong, self-styled “Lifetime devotee of Kunqu,” insists that this Kunqu crystallizes the essence of China’s music, dance, literature and the spirit of its people.
Kunqu, in its capacity of “Mentor of Theatrical Art,” is acknowledged as China’s most refined and elegant folk opera. Its arias are standard training material for performers of Peking and other schools of Chinese opera. Patronized by Chinese literati as well as commoners, Kunqu has absorbed more from China’s elite culture than any other folk opera and is hence acclaimed as the paragon of traditional Chinese theater.
Hong Sheng, one of China’s most famous playwrights, was born in 1645 in a shack outside Hangzhou City. His The Palace of Eternal Youth and accomplished Ming Dynasty playwright Tang Xianzu’s (1550-1616) Peony Pavilion are regarded as Kunqu masterpieces. In 2004, Taiwanese investors brought the two classics back to the stage in order that contemporary Chinese audiences might witness the cream of ancient Chinese theater.
February 2004 saw the debut of The Palace of Eternal Youth and its rapturous reception in Taipei. The following five performances, played to a packed theater. In commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Hong Sheng’s death, the company staged the opera in Beijing in December 2004. The opera has since been on a four of other Chinese historical and cultural cities, as well as Hong Kong and Europe. This Kunqu revival has brought back to the Chinese people a precious aspect of their culture, all but forgotten for 200 years.
The Beauty of Kunqu
High art survives as long as there are people with the cultural background to appreciate it. During the first Kunqu revival from 1980 to the early 1990s, the number of performers often exceeded those in the audience. As Kunqu is also the pronunciation of the Chinese character meaning drowsy, it was jokingly referred to as sleepy opera. Theater goers untutored in Kunqu found its slow tempo, formulism, and excessively elegant libretto incomprehensible, and so stayed away from it in their hundreds.
Between the 17th and 18th century, however, Kunqu was as popular as today’s hottest pop singers. How did a folk opera have such a profound effect on the whole spectrum of society? According to Bai Xianyong, “Kunqu combines the beauty of music, dance and literature. Continuously refined for 400 years, it is now the aesthetic pinnacle of Chinese performance art.”
Kunqu originates in areas south of the lower reaches of Yangtze River. The famous historical and cultural city of Suzhou was the Kunqu center during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing 1644-1911) dynasties. Suzhou’s gentle Wu dialect distinguishes its melodically poetic condences.
Almost all Kunqu operas are love stories. One 10-minute aria, accompanied by the graceful motion of long white silk sleeves, tells a moving love story. The performer’s elegant manipulation of long silken sleeves describes Chinese characters executed in free and cursive calligraphic style, and is a visual feast in itself. Says Gu Duhuang, “Kunqu performance is more than mere entertainment, it is an artistic treat that nourishes aesthetic appreciation.”
Kunqu: Old or New
“There have been many Kunqu works in the past 450 years, but The Palace of Eternal Youth best conveys the literary and artistic excellence of the opera,” says professor at Taiwan University Zeng Yongyi and expert on The Palace of Eternal Youth. He believes that the love story of Tang Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine Yang Yuhuan as depicted in the opera expresses best the Chinese ideal of love, where in utter commitment makes life and death meaningless in the face of overwhelming love.
Traditional Kunqu performances were always every long. A single production could last as long as several days. The original version of The Palace of Eternal Youth had 50 acts, of which Gu Duhuang, selected 28 for the three-night-long performance. The intent behind this extended performance was to recreate an original Kunqu with no innovation or reform.
Says director Lin Zhaohua, “We have been promoting our national culture and traditional theater for decades, but have made no attempt to celebrate our highest form of performance art.” He recalls having watched an “innovated” Kunqu opera, in which the performers’ footwear was identical to that worn in Peking Opera, and where there was no flute music, an integral aspect of Kunqu. Upon going backstage, he found three abandoned flutes in a dusty corner. When interviewed by a journalist after the performance, his bitter comment was that the company had successfully killed Kunqu.
“Keep it traditional, traditional and more traditional” is the principle Gu Duhuang works on. He explains, “Yip Kam Tim insists that these days adhering to truly authentic tradition amounts to being avant-garde, a sentiment upon which we shook hands.” They reached agreement in less than half an hour, Gu’s sole condition being that Yip’s stagecraft should not overshadow the actual performance.
Gu Duhuang was born to a big, well-to-do family to that owned a library which also housed half of the Shanghai Museum’s literary collection. He does not share Bai Xianyong’s all-consuming passion for Kunqu, but believes that all stage art, whether Chinese or Western, is related with this in mind. He has tried to preserve the originality of Kunqu rather than reproduce it like a fake curio.
For Gu, the danger of “homicide” – the risk of Kunqu being superseded by other kinds of folk operas -- is not as great as that of “suicide” posed by people in the Kunqu field who insist on modernizing, popularizing and Westernizing it. While Gu does not oppose the creation of new opera, he attaches more importance to restoring and preserving tradition. In his opinion, the crucial precondition for contemporary productions of Kunqu is reverence for its original form, otherwise the result is mediocre.
“There was originally a repertoire of 500, but only 200 remain,” he laments. As to the number of people who work in Kunqu, Gu can tell you the exact number: “Six opera troupes comprising a total of 900 performers.”
Gu sees the patronage of Taiwanese Kunqu lovers as heroic. Without Bai Xianyong, Yip Kam Tim, and Chen Qide’s design, investment and publicity, neither The Peony Pavilion nor The Palace of Eternal Youth, world cultural heritage or not, would ever have caught the public eye.
Cedric Aviani, from France, is Beijing Performance International coordinator of The Palace of Eternal Youth. The first time he saw the opera was in Taipei. He watched all three nights of the performance, something he never expected he could do. His reaction: “It was fantastic! Anyone interested in pure culture will love it.” Aviani believes that this grand Chinese opera should belong to the whole world.
True tradition appears avant-garde; tradition is actually fashion. The Palace of Eternal Youth is more than a kunqu opera, being more a grand vision of visual art, and a long-term artistic project. It is also a beautiful dream: Chinese culture has been challenged by Western culture since the 20th century. Kunqu being defined as “the utmost in performance art” is a sign that the Chinese people have regained a precious facet of their superb culture.
Kunqu Opera
Kunqu, also called "Kunqushanqiang," originated in the Kunqushan region of Jiangsu during the mid 14th century, it is distinct for its refined and elegant arias that were perfected through extensive performances. By 1621 it had achieved nationwide popularity that lasted through till the 18th century.
Synopsis of The Palace of Eternal Youth
Yang Yuhuan, concubine to Emperor Xuanzong (685-762) of the Tang Dynasty is beautiful, modest and a musician. As she is beloved of the Emperor, her family are given influential positions in the imperial court, and her greedy and corrupt brother Yang Guozhong is made prime minister. Yuhuan dreams that the Goddess of the Moon teaches her heavenly music. Yuhuan tells of it to the emperor and together they recreate her dream, calling it the Nishangyuyiqu (Melody of Colorful Feather Clothes). Yuhuan loves lichee, so the emperor dispatches his men to South China to fetch this sweet succulent fruit for his lady love. In their haste the horsemen trample many citizens to death and destroy fields of crops. This causes mass resentment among the people.
On the seventh night of the seventh moon, known in Chinese as qixi, and the Chinese equivalent of St Valentine’s day, Yuhuan and the emperor pledge their love to each other, their witnesses the mythical Niulang and Zhinu. However, this illusion of sweet times ahead is like flowers in a mirror or the moon in the water, and soon disappears. In the face of the rebellion, the emperor has no choice but to flee. Yuhuan helps hiome make the decision to leave her by committing suicide. After the rebellion has been suppressed, the emperor makes a sandalwood sculpture of Yuhuan and expresses to it his heartbreak and regret, and the ghost of Yuhuan feels regret for her selfishness in life. She is looked after by the local god of the land, and Zhinu, also sympathetic to her, helps her to become a goddess. With the help of the Goddess of the Moon, Zhinu and other immortals Yuhuan and the emperor are eventually reunited on the Palace of the Moon on the day of the Mid-autumn Festival. They remain together for all eternity.