Wei Hai-Min as Lady Yu. Image courtesy of www.jingjuok.com

When a general, established in numerous battles and acclaimed as a hero by many, suddenly finds himself at a dead end with no backup coming, what does he do? Hannibal committed suicide. So did Xiang Yu, a historical figure who lived more than two thousand years ago in China. Unlike Hannibal, who was probably alone when he poisoned himself, Xiang Yu was with his beloved beauty. The lady, Yu, who had been on his side for more than a decade, killed herself because she didn’t want to be his burden. Xiang Yu actually had a slim chance of escaping to his hometown and coming back with a new army. But he refused to go back to beg for more soldiers, and he took his own life. His poem—recited at the moment when he realized that his doom had come—together with his tragic end and Yu’s dramatic death has become a legend in history; and the legend a classic of Beijing Opera (Jingju), a style of traditional Chinese operas.

The classic was reenacted in Lincoln Center on July 10 and 11 by the Contemporary Legend Theatre from Taiwan. The theater, founded by Wu Hsing-Kuo, a Beijing Opera actor, is famous for adapting Shakespeare tragedies to traditional Chinese operas. This year, the Lincoln Center Festival invited him to present his one-man show, King Lear. Before this extraordinary, truly contemporary solo, he gave the audience two nights of traditional performances, together with Wei Hai-Min, Taiwan’s leading actress of Beijing Opera. On these same nights Ms. Wei also played a tipsy royal consort, a character that is equally as famous as the general and the beauty are in Beijing Opera. This is why many people love New York. In this modern city where the most bizarre is easily encountered, one can still find traditional scenes from a distant culture in a pure form.

Mei Lan-Fang as Lady Yu with Liu Lian-Rong as General Xiang Yu. Mei Lan-Fang, the most famous actor in Beijing Opera history, defined this role. Image courtesy of www.jingjuok.com

Beijing Opera, as well as hundreds of other traditional Chinese ones which are similar art forms based on different regional cultures and dialects, are not really operas. It’s much more than an opera. The vocal techniques are strictly executed yet the styles highly personalized. There is no classification such as tenor, soprano, mezzo, etc. although the singing is equally demanding as those. The acrobatic movements are unique. Both Mr. Wu and Ms. Wei had difficult choreography on that night. Mr. Wu had several fighting scenes with performances resembling martial arts. Ms. Wei, to portray the tipsy royal consort, had to hold her body on one leg in a T-shape and then descend to the ground gradually while bending over backwards to ultimately form a beautiful figure like a crawling fish. This is one of the famous movements that present the role of the consort in Beijing Opera. Such graceful moves take many years of training, and one has to start as a small child to achieve this level of flexibility.

It was an absolutely stunning night. Both Mr. Wu and Ms. Wei gave their best performances. Mr. Wu was wearing characteristic face paint, perhaps the only aspect of Beijing Opera known internationally. The face paint, along with martial arts on stage and an orchestra of drums and strings, would at first appear festive. Yet it’s not. For one thing, the story is about the tragic end of a hero. In addition, traditional Chinese operas are highly codified. A traditional stage has only one table and two chairs. Everything else, be it a battle, a party, a garden, is left to the actors’ performances and the audience’s imagination. This echoes the artistic ideas imbedded in traditional Chinese paintings. This is also why the acrobatic movements, the steps, and every detailed body and facial expression are as important as the singing. The horse, for example, is represented by a whip on traditional Chinese stages. When Mr. Wu played opposite an imaginary horse at the end of his act, he might have seemed weird to a naïve audience because he was just manipulating a whip. Indeed, I heard laughter at the time, although it was actually a heartbreaking moment when the hero tried to say goodbye to his fellow horse prior to death.

They were certainly allowed to laugh since the show was maybe just another exotic cultural event in New York. However, to bring something exotic to a distant city like New York usually means it is blooming at home. In China, unfortunately, all traditional operas have experienced serious decline. It may not be a unique Chinese problem since many things classical and/or traditional, such as ballet, are faced with the threat of modernization around the world; but in Asia, modernization is almost equal to Westernization. Can something as Chinese as Beijing Opera still be the same when wearing a suit? The answer may vary. Nevertheless, it is a matter of life or death for traditional Chinese operas. Luckily, there has been a revival of traditional cultural values in China in recent years. Many people, including myself, are hoping that the trend will help make the old-fashioned things live on and perhaps bloom again.