Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Company Coming to Singapore

Leading Taiwanese opera troupe Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Company (明华园戏剧总团) is coming to Singapore soon to perform.

As part of the Moonfest for this year (mid-autumn festival celebration), the company will be staging their well-loved show, "The Immortal of Penglai" (蓬莱大仙), starring Sun Cuifeng as the leading character.


"The Immortal of Penglai" tells the story of a handsome, but arrogant half-deity Li Xuan, who offended the Goddess of Yue, and in revenge, the latter destroyed his mortal body while his soul was away. In order not to become a roaming ghost, Li Xuan had no choice but to attach his soul onto the body of a dead beggar, and became the more popularly-known "Iron-clutch Li" of the Eight Immortals.

This Hokkien opera will be staged at the Esplanade Theatre on 6 and 7 September, 8pm, and tickets are already on sale at SISTIC. Fans of Hokkien opera, please set these dates aside for this event!

Hokkien Liyuan Opera - "Li Yaxian"

Siong Leng Musical Association will be staging a Liyuan opera titled "Li Yaxian" at the Esplanade Recital Studio next month. This will be the association's first full-length Liyuan opera performance for over a decade.

The Liyuan opera has got the reputation of being Chinese opera's living heritage as it has got a long history of 800 years, and it was even said that the ways huadans in Liyuan opera moved and walked were actually inspired by how women really walked back in the Ming dynasty. The repertoire for Liyuan opera is also one of the rarest; some of the scripts dates back to the era of Song dynasty's "Zaju" opera and had already been extinct in other opera genres.

"Li Yaxian" is one of the most popular shows that are still being performed in Liyuan opera. It tells the story of a talented scholar, Zheng Yuanhe, who fell in love with a beautiful courtesan named Li Yaxian while on his way to sit for the imperial examinations. In order to get close to this beauty, Yuanhe decided to step into the "forbidden zone" - the brothel which Yaxian lived in. Brothel owner Madame Li knew this was a good opportunity to cheat Yuanhe of his money, so she decided to bring the couple together. After neglecting his studies and having used up all his money, the heartless Madame Li had Yuanhe chased out, and Yaxian used her own money to redeem herself to go in search of Yuanhe.

For Siong Leng's performance, however, there was a slight change to the script, for now, the love story of Zheng Yuanhe and Li Yaxian would be unfold through the camera lens of a modern-day photographer. That makes me curious over one point: this performance has been introduced as a "Liyuan opera", but is it going to be really a pure Liyuan opera, for it seems that there is a bit of contemporary drama essence involved. My guess is that it could be something like "Titoudao", a fusion of contemporary drama with authentic Chinese opera, just that in this case, the dosage of Liyuan opera would be much stronger, and lesser concentration on contemporary drama (maybe 10% or lesser). If that is the case, labelling this show as "Liyuan opera" might be a bit misleading, for those who is more into watching "authentic" Chinese opera. Nevertheless, I still feel that this show sounds interesting, and should be a good performance to catch.

"Li Yaxian" is part of the "Chinese opera delights" series by the Esplanade, and shall be staged on 11 August 2007, 3pm and 8pm, at the Esplanade Ricital Studio. Tickets are priced at $35 (senior citizens, NSF and students enjoy a concession price of $26), and is available at SISTIC.

Elaborate "Dream of the Red Mansion"

Yesterday was an exciting night for me, as I finally managed to catch the elaborate version of "Dream of the Red Mansion" at the Esplanade after 6 long years of waiting.

The performance was performed by Shanghai Yue Opera Company, starring China's first-grade actresses Qian Huili and Shan Yangping as Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu respectively. When I first watched their VCD production of this same show in 2000, I was amazed by the elaborate stage set, big number of ensemble roles in various scenes as well as the rich sound produced by their grand musical team, which includes western orchestra instruments as well. However, the show they put up yesterday night wasn't really as good as the VCD version. First of all, the stage at Esplanade was actually not as big as the stage they performed in Shanghai, and hence the stage set had been slightly simplified. For example, in the original version, they actually had a full-sized bridge with many peach blossom trees on the stage for the garden scenes. In yesterday's version, the bridge was reduced to just a section, and the number of trees was greatly reduced too. The number of ensemble roles had been reduced too, but I supposed it would be too much of a cost if the opera company is to bring in as many actors as what they had back then, and hence they decided to do the cut.

Having said that, ther were still some rather nice parts. For example, in the scene where Daiyu was burying the wiltered peach blossoms, the flowers actually fell off from the tree branches by themselves (the tree props were actually electricity powered), adding more realism to the show. Also, in the scene where Daiyu burnt all her poems during her dying moments, the furnace glowed red when the poems where thrown in, with smoke coming out. I could hear some members of the audience wowing at this sight. In the original China production, they even had soot flying out of the furnace at the end of the burning, but too bad in this production, there isn't any.

In terms of acting and singing, there wasn't nothing much to really complain, other than Fang Yafen and Chen Ying, who couldn't reach some high notes in their songs last night. I guess they are down with flu due to the weather, or else it is almost impossible for them to show such sub-standard performance. As for the music, I feel it had improved quite a great deal since their 1999 production. For example, in the scene where Daiyu was buring her poems again, the music back then was too rush, and it didn't quite bring out the grievances of Lin Daiyu well in that scene. The tempo and feel of the music was better controlled this time round, and in some scenes, additional timpani rolls were inserted suitably to create higher climax.

A magnificant show, I should say, despite some lacking areas. However, I was a bit disappointed as well, as my favourite actress Wang Zhiping was not in the cast. Anyway, I now wonder if there is any chance Shanghai Yue opera company will bring in Wang Zhiping and Zheng Guofeng's version, or Fang Yafen and Zhao Zhigang's version in future...