Hosted by Ba Tu, headmaster of the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, and Fu Jin, well-known scholar, keynote speakers Professor David Der-wei Wang from Harvard University and Professor David Rolston from the University of Michigan shared their thoughts and ideas on the Perking Opera and Zhang Huoding. Last week, New Yorkers got an insiders perspective on the theme of Chinese opera megastar Zhang Huoding's artistic style and how she brought the Perking Opera to the Lincoln Center in New York City.īefore the highly acclaimed Zhang took the stage, two well-known professors of Chinese culture and literature hosted a conference at the Lincoln Center, attracting many Americans interested in the culture of Peking Opera. After Xue is separated from her husband and son by a flood and left impoverished herself, her kindness is returned by - as fate would have it - Zhao.Professor David Der-wei Wang speaks on the origin and development of Peking Opera in his lecture. Its heroine, Xue Xiangling, begins as an insufferably spoiled daughter of a wealthy family but is moved to an act of kindness on her wedding day and turns over her well-filled jewelry purse to an impoverished bride-to-be, Zhao Shouzhen. “The Jewelry Purse” was nowhere near so entertaining to a newcomer. The role of Xu, something of a nullity to begin with, was played by an understudy. Xu Chang was also delightful in the role of Xiao, the maidservant being a pert and spunky stock character in Chinese opera. The fight rages all around her in that scene, in the form of acrobatics by the large cast.
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Zhang was superb as Bai, a regal presence in her singing and acting, but also remarkably skilled at swordplay and martial-arts moves as, with her character pregnant, she goes to battle to free the hapless Xu from another fix: captivity in a monastery. Restored to life through Bai’s efforts, Xu again proves an all-too-human companion, but they come to terms. But through the evil deeds of a bullying monk, Xu sees Bai in her reptile form origins and dies on the spot. As they explore lower ground, Bai falls instantly in love with Xu Xian, and they marry. The colorful variety of expression is often enough to attract Westerners to the form even before their ears have become accustomed to it.īased on a thousand-year-old folk tale, “White Snake” tells of two immortal snake spirits, Bai Suzhen and her maidservant, Xiao Qing, who reside atop a mountain. Zhang’s every move and acknowledged a beautifully sung aria or a particularly elegant turn with immediate applause and shouts, as Chinese opera audiences are wont to do (and as the uninitiated were urged to do, in little preperformance talks from the stage).Ĭhinese opera, which differs greatly from the Western mode, is the basic theatrical form in China, a catchall typically including not only vocal and instrumental performance and acting but also mime, speech (often melodiously heightened), thoroughgoing choreography and acrobatics.
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Zhang’s fame was evident from what appeared to be full houses and from the unbridled enthusiasm of the audiences, clearly consisting largely of Chinese speakers. Koch Theater: “Legend of the White Snake,” on Wednesday, and “The Jewelry Purse,” on Thursday. But nothing remotely approached that level of ambition until this week, when the Chinese star Zhang Huoding made her American debut in two full-evening works of Peking opera with the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts at the David H. True, there was Chen Shi-Zheng’s epic 18-hour production of Tang Xianzu’s “The Peony Pavilion” at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1999.
For New Yorkers who basked in regular productions of Chinese opera at the tiny Taipei Theater of the Taiwanese Chinese Information and Culture Center in the 1990s, it has since been feast or famine.
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