September 9th - 11th , 2003

Chinese Opera Visits Carnegie Mellon,

Gives Performances, Workshop at School of Drama

The Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh’s Asian Studies Center, hosted the Taipei Li-yuan Chinese Opera Theatre for their stay in Pittsburgh on September 9th through 11th.  The company has been on American tour with Maestro Li Bao-chun, coming directly to CMU from their performances at New York’s Lincoln Center.  Li Bao-chun is an actor and director and one of five Grandmasters of the Chinese Opera living today.  Since 1990, Li has had a partnership with the Koo Foundation in Taiwan, which has sponsored the Li-yuan Chinese Opera Theatre’s tours to America, Europe, Asia, and Japan.

On Thursday, September 11th, Grandmaster Li conducted a workshop for acting students at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama.  Li-yuan Opera troupe producer Vivien Huai-chun Ku translated Li’s instructions for the assembled students.  Li focused on the use of breath and breathing techniques in Beijing Opera and how these techniques could be applied to western acting to facilitate a greater physical relaxation and fluidity of movement.  Li lead the students through several minutes of a Tai-Chi warm-up and then showed them how to perform the Beijing Opera style gestures to indicate mounting and riding a horse onstage.  Li went around the room correcting students’ techniques and coaching them on how to keep their movements smooth, circular and fluid.

"The School of Drama has never had the opportunity or made it a priority to expose students to non-Western forms," says Elizabeth Bradley, head of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. "It's important to be fully educated that the artist is exposed to other art forms around the world."

The Li-yuan Chinese Opera was the first company to perform on the Chosky Theatre’s new thrust-stage arrangement.  Trained at the Taiwan National Academy of Operatic Arts, company members spend nine years learning the five elements of traditional Chinese Opera (also called Beijing Opera): singing, speaking, moving, fighting and dancing.  The style, when viewed with American eyes, could be described as a mix of opera, circus and ballet.  The Beijing Opera style involves a much more intense physical activity than western “opera,” including many flips, cartwheels, jumps, falls, handling of multiple stage weapons, kung fu, and, of course, dancing.  In addition, characters and actions are illustrated though a specific vocabulary of stylized gestures.  Spread, fluttering fingers indicate a trembling, sentimental emotion.  A particular step, turn and positioning of hands indicates the mounting and riding of a horse.  Singers in the Beijing Opera project their voices up through the nose, hard palate (roof of mouth and upper cheeks) and forehead.  The sound is bright, nasal, and carries far without electronic amplification.  All performances are accompanied by an orchestra of traditional Chinese instruments, including wood-block and Chinese cymbal percussion, clarinet-like, and stringed instruments.  All music is played in the 5-toned Chinese scale of notes.  Many moments in the operas are choreographed to coincide precisely with certain musical flourishes.  Each opera was performed with vividly colored costumes, complete with heavily painted faces and elaborate headpieces.

"With Chinese opera, you get a composite art form. I think that's so important -- music, acrobatics, texts and defined movements," says Bradley.

On Tuesday, September 9th, the Li-yuan troupe performed the opera of The Monkey King, a much-celebrated figure from Chinese mythology.  Li Bao-chun took the title role, leading the troupe on a comic romp from the Monkey King’s earthly kingdom through the celestial court of the Jade Emperor.  Repeatedly, the celestial court tries to trick the monkey king into defeat and subjugation, demanding he submit to the authority of the heavenly Jade Emperor.  The Monkey King’s manner, however, is always cheerful, irreverent and unperturbed.  He defies their authority and fights his way, with the help of his simian friends, out of all dangers. 

The following evening, the troupe performed Farewell My Concubine and Golden Falcon.  Farewell My Concubine is the Beijing opera referenced by the 1993 movie of the same name.  The opera is a story of tragic love set in ancient China, during the Warring States period.  Huang Yu-ling, a young actress and winner of several acting awards, played the central figure of Lady Yu, the concubine.  Li Bao-chun acted the other central role of her warrior-king, Xiang Yu.  Much of the opera involved their unaccompanied solos as the couple sang of their fears and feelings for each other.  These stark moments hung in sharp contrast to the previous evening’s constant percussive musical accompaniment. 

Golden Falcon is another love story, this one more upbeat, of a celestial warrior and a celestial sylph.  They fall in love in heaven, where romantic love is forbidden.  For their transgression, the sylph, Precious Deer, is cast down to earth and the warrior, Golden Falcon, is imprisoned in heaven.  Li and Huang again play opposite each other as Falcon and Deer.  Golden Falcon breaks out of his prison and flies to earth to enlist the aid of the birds of the forest.  At the conclusion of the opera Golden Falcon and his birds defeat the army of celestial gods in a specially choreographed dance-fight scene set to modern instrumentation.  Throughout both evenings, dialog being sung onstage was translated into English and projected onto two screens flanking the stage.

Grandmaster Li Bao-chun was born in 1950 into a family of celebrated Chinese Opera singers that included the legendary Li Shao-chun, his father.  Following in his father’s steps, Li Bao-chun specializes in both the “Lao-sheng” (bearded man) and “Wu-sheng” (combating hero) roles.  Li Bao-chun began his training at age 9 and at 10 was admitted to the Peking Opera School where he continued his studies until he graduated at the age of 18.  He was then assigned to the most respected opera troupe, China National Chinese Opera in Beijing.  During China’s cultural revolution, Li’s family was labeled political dissidents and he was forced to undertake hard farm labor.  He suffered the loss of both his parents and grandparents in this time, but still continued practicing their tradition of opera training.  Now free to perform again, Li has had a long and successful career.  In addition to performing around the world, Li teaches at the Department of Drama in the Chinese Cultural University and the National Taiwan University in Taipei.  He also heads the “Taipei Nova Chinese Opera Troupe” which is based in Novel Hall, Taipei.

On Friday the Taipei Li-yuan Chinese Opera Theatre left Pittsburgh to continue their American tour in Baltimore.