1. Novelty of Production
1.1 Renaissance Effort in Chinese Opera
- In 1995, Grant Shen directed Freed by a Flirt , Singapore’s first Chinese opera performed entirely in English. That production in the classical style was reported in The Drama Review (TDR 171), the world’s leading theatre journal, edited by Richard Schechner and published by MIT Press. This 2008 production of The West Wing will again revolutionize the theatregoing experience of the audience: for the first time in the world, Chinese opera will be sung to modern music.
1.2 Authentic Audience Experience in Modern Music
- Music is the soul of Chinese opera, which continues to employ the musical styles of the 16 th -19 th centuries, whereas ancient audiences in Chinese opera houses enjoyed music contemporaneous with their own times. They followed popular tunes in a manner comparable to what modern audiences would do in pop concerts. In order for a modern audience to have an authentic experience of Chinese opera in its heyday, modern music (instead of classical music) is employed.
1.3 Authentic Musicality in English Translation
- The musicality integral to the chuanqi libretto is defined by language parallelism, tonal pattern, and rhyme scheme. The English translation for the NUS production does not attempt to represent the tonal patterns of Chinese as English is not a tonal language. However, it maintains both the language parallelism and rhyme scheme of the original language. English doesn't offer as many rhyming possibilities as Italian or Chinese. In order to preserve the musicality of the original text, the English libretto mirrors as closely as possible the Chinese rhyme scheme. Appendix 1 provides a glimpse of this rhyming practice.
1.4 Authentic Arrangement of Existing Popular Melodies
Unlike Western operas or musicals, Chinese opera in its 700-year history was never sung to original music composed for its librettos. Instead, the librettos were always composed to existing popular melodies , which enjoyed three advantages over newly composed original music . First, popular music, by definition, had already secured a listening audience (while newly composed music might be heard once and easily forgotten). Second, audience familiarity with popular music encouraged a nostalgic sentiment or emotional engagement. Third and most important, the pre-existing lyrics of the adapted melodies, while unsung in the opera, were likely to work on the subconscious minds of the audience. These pre-existing lyrics functioned as an inaudible musical subtext, enriching the audible operatic text.