Chinese Opera On Tuesday, October 8, the National Chinese Opera Theater of Taipei will begin its second tour of the United States in as many years, appearing first in Spokane’s new Opera House for three nights as part of Expo 74’s “China Week” activites. From there, the troupe will tour 35 U.S. cities and college towns under the management of impresario Harold Shaw. It will be a repeat performance of its 1973 tour, when the company played in 29 cities across the United States and Canada, in such places as the Music Center in Los Angeles, City Center in New York, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. more than 100,000 paying patrons saw the 81 performances last year, and critics from coast to coast heaped praise on the group. What special significance was there in an operatic tradition totally foreign to Americans? In a 6-page color layout, Time magazine answered the question. “It seemed a cultural crime,” wrote Associate Editor Bill Bender. “In mainland China during the late 1960’s, as part of Mao Ts-tung’s Cultural Revolution, the ancient art of Peking opera was deliberately put to death.” The government and people of free China see the long and authentic heritage of the Chinese opera as an important part of both their own heritage, and that of the free world, a heritage which would make the world poorer were it lost or destroyed. 8th Century As an art form, Chinese opera dates back to the T’ang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.), but it reached its zenith during the Ch’ing Dynasty (1648-1911), having accumulated a rich repertory based upon historical episodes, folklore and Chinese mythology. The term “Chinese opera” is both incomplete and misleading. In Chinese, it is called kuo chu, or national theater. It is an experience in total theater in that it embraces singing, dancing, acting, pantomime, tumbling, juggling, slapstick and the martial art of kung fu. There is so much symbolism and stylized action in Chinese opera that some in Taiwan worried about the response it might expect from American audiences. The result was beyond everybody’s expectations. Harold C. Schoenberg of the New York Times called it “an entrancing experience.” Alan M. Kriegsman of the Washington Post admitted that “we Yankees may have only skimmed the surface, but what a surface!” Heuwell Tircuit of the San Francisco Chronicle said “this is a company of masters.” And Walter Monfried of the Milwaukee Journal rated it X: “Xuberant, Xhilarating, Xciting, Xceptional, Xcellent in all respects.” Renaissance Taiwan’s long fight to preserve China’s embattled culture is not limited to the opera. In contrast to the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” waged by the Communists for the destruction of all old culture, free China has waged a Cultural Renaissance Movement. President Chiang best explained its aims as a reaffirmation of China’s long heritage of moral, democratic and scientific spirit. And, through the preservation and enrichment of China’s culture, a renewed sense of cultural and social direction. If the preservation of China’s culture is a battle, it is one that has clearly been won on the island of Taiwan. And this autumn, if you happen to find that the National Chinese Opera Theater is playing in a town near you, you might wish to see the victory of that battle for yourself. |
