The culture just fascinates, even the somewhat unreal, romanticized Hollywood version of the late thirties.
But we don’t have to go back that far to see the interest renewed. Remember Michael Cimino’s 1985 “Year of the Dragon”? It was as much a success because of its performances and story as it was due to the subject matter about which it tantalized movie audiences: gangster (tong and triads) life in Chinatown. And what more can be offered in terms of accolades for the almost ballet-like violence in the good-vs-evil, Chinese-spahgetti-gangster movies of Director John Woo who made Chow Yun Fat a household name with a growing and loyal segment of American movie audiences? Woo’s “The Killer” is both an orgy of violence and a work of high art. It was the movie that made Chow Yun Fat an international star. More recently, in 2000, a Chinese movie director by the name of Zhang Yimou, burst onto the scene in America with his enormously popular “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, followed in 2004 by the movie “Hero” staring Jet Li, followed this year by his “Curse of the Golden Flower” starring audience favorite Chow Yun Fat.
A couple years ago, even the weighty New York Times, took note of things Chinese with a favorable review of Fred Ho’s “Voice of the Dragon 2: Shaolin Secret Stories” [Crouching Leopard, Somersaulting Dragon, January 10, 2004]. The Times noted that the show which was loosely defined as a martial arts spectacle was also “an opera without songs” but with “plenty of jazzy music.” The reviewer liked what he saw.
Hoping for an audience crossover -- and in the most unlikely of places -- the producers of the soon-to-be-released “Curse of the Golden Flower,” staring, again, Chow Yun Fat, have even taken out a full page ad in the December issue of Opera News, touting the movie, obviously aware of the opera world’s interest in the late-December World Premier of Tan Dun’s much anticipated opera presentation of “The First Emperor” at the Met.
So what’s the connection between these movies and opera, you ask?
It was Tan Dun’s uniquely percussioned and highly choreographed music that intrigued movie audiences in “Crouching Tiger” and “Hero,” and in an article in the December issue of “Opera News” he noted that it was a movie, “The Emperor’s Shadow”, that first interested his wife when she saw it while vacationing in Hong Kong, and which prompted her to urge him to secure the rights to the screenplay and convert it into an opera, which he did.
And the Met’s much-anticipated opera isn’t the only game in town either.
Another stage presentation scheduled for this February is the New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDT) production of its “Chinese New Year Spectacular.” This internationally praised show will play in 26 cities worldwide, and be making its way back to Boston in the 2,600-seat, Boston Opera House where its sponsors hope to attract an even larger audience than filled Emerson College’s 800-seat Cutler Majestic last year.
The “Spectacular,” which focuses on basic themes of devotion, loyalty, spirituality and freedom, is also a tribute to what is best about man, regardless of culture. We wrote: “While not an opera in the traditional sense of the word, New Tang Dynasty TV's ‘Chinese New Year Global Gala: Myths & Legends’ . . . was very much in the nature of opera – albeit a Chinese opera – that was a colorful and lively theatrical presentation set not only to music and ballet, but motion pictures and drums and elegant dance and singing that gave a glimpse of a culture and its history that was at times hypnotic in its presentation, sensual in its fluid movements and inspirational in its theme. [See Previous Reviews, 2005-06]
The interest in China and its culture as an operatic centerpiece has even spread to the university level as well.
Last year, OperaOnline.us interviewed Peter Mark, Virginia Opera’s artistic director, about his fledgling International Opera Alliance (IOA), an organization, headed by George Mason University’s Alice Kendell, who serves as the IOA’s president [See Archives, International Opera Alliance, Opening doors to China and back]. Its mission statement is simple: “To create enduring cross-cultural partnerships involving countries, opera companies, institutions of higher learning, artists, teachers, students, and opera lovers focused on artist education, international co-productions, international vocal competitions, and other partnership activities.”
Indeed, precisely because of its initial success in producing the first Italian version of “Tosca” sung at the Shanghai Opera House in 2005, the Shanghai company is planning on scheduling four major operas a year, three Western and one Chinese, and International Opera Alliance has stated that its goal it to ensure that this happens.
It is in this context, and the interest that all things Chinese generates, that the buzz around Tan Dun’s “The First Emperor,” featuring opera legend Plácido Domingo, singing the title role of Qin Shi Huang takes center stage and has the opera world in anticipatory euphoria.
To understand the opera, a good place to start is to understand just who this First Emperor was. The First Emperor, treated sympathetically by Dun, has “a kind of romanticism” about himself says Domingo in his Opera News feature. The real emperor may have been a little less romantic, though.
Americans are fascinated by things Chinese, from the culture of China and its history, to its latest offerings in movies and theater.
Indeed, things Chinese attract American audiences with increasing regularity and popularity – and truth be known, while political divisions run deep on the issue of two Chinas, when it comes to art, Americans aren’t generally fussy about from where the art originates – the People’s Republic of China on the mainland or The Republic of China on Taiwan -- because the culture and history of China is universally recognized as the culture and history of one Chinese people.
Many hope this non-discriminating interest runs to theater and opera, as well.
Our fascination with Chinese culture certainly didn’t start with Bruce Lee, but if you wanted to pick a year when the intrigue began to really take hold with the younger, contemporary general movie-going public, the late Bruce Lee’s 1973 “Enter the Dragon” might be a good place to start, and that’s taking nothing away from the earlier successes of the legendary sleuth Charlie Chan, never mind that Chan (Warren Oland and, after his death in 1938, Sydney Toler) wasn’t even Chinese; he only portrayed a Chinese detective. While the Chan movies were offensive to some who viewed the character as stereotypical, the series was enormously popular with the public and still manages to draw a DVD audience.