sunday:
it was my mother who wanted us to go to the guangzhou cantonese opera troupe of china's hua yue ying, and though i am not overly keen on most kinds of chinese opera and don't understand cantonese i was raised on some cantonese opera music, enough to admit i find it pleasant at any rate, so i allow her to haul the family to the esplanade. and afterall when you think about it, i don't understand italian either, but that doesn't stop me from going to tosca, and unlike the pater i have at least the advantage of reading chinese subtitles.

hua yue ying is directed by chen xinyi, whose most famous work with the shanghai dramatic arts centre, shang yang, had impressed me very much three years ago, but even then i didn't expect how modern this production would feel. the set design, stage effects and direction clearly catering to the modern audience, it seems to me really a play performed with traditional cantonese opera techniques. my mother had plenty of quibbles with the non-traditional elements, and of the newly-composed libretto being far too unliterary (true.) on the other hand i enjoyed myself very much, and i suspect, precisely because of the modern elements, and i like the way the updated cantonese opera retains the traditional music, singing techniques and movement, but remains fully aware that we are no longer able to enjoy traditional staging these days. and that is the sort of good work that will go towards taking cantonese opera from the provincial to the international stage.

was amused too about the way my parents discussed the performance on the train home. my mother disdained the comic sange in the opera: cantonese opera never has comic characters! that is the sort of foolishness you get only in teochew opera! and my father, who is teochew and loves teochew opera, promptly said: oh! but the sange was the character i liked best!

heh.