Review-Heart of Coral-Hong Kong Arts Festival
2-3-13
By: Tom Hope
The Chinese title for this chamber opera is ‘Xiao Hong’. That’s the name of the celebrated Chinese republican free-spirited writer who died in Hong Kong at aged 31, after a turbulent life in the broadening shadow of Japanese occupation. For more info, see here.
The ‘Hong’ of her name signifies ‘red’ and ‘red-ness’ permeates this piece - the red bridal gown for the forced marriage she flees, the red flames of passion driving her pursuit of love and purity, the red autumn leaves and the redness of the sunset by which her early death is symbolized, invoking the East turning Red with the advent of the socialist state for which she yearned.
So why ‘Heart of Coral’? It’s a mystery, to me at least. The programme quotes the opera’s libretto (by local playwright Yan Yu): "That fire under the eyes is molten coral, Just like the heart of coral, Unbridled passions burn within." Coral has flame-like colours. It breaks easily but poisons the toucher. So was that the tragedy of Xiao Hong: destroyed by the shifting seas of her turbulent times and those to whom she reached out?
The libretto is peppered with philosophical oxymorons, rhetorical questions and a relentless reiteration of the fact that ‘we live in the face of death’. The score reflects this with a (mostly) sombre austerity, pierced with moments of melodic purity, painting a mood poem of Xiao Hong’s imagined innerscapes in her pursuit of romantic love, moving finally to an ease with her own self.
The set complements this with restrained minimalism, the backdrop a leaf-like map of China, the ‘colour’ coming from a downstage pool in which Xiao Hong sits as the opera opens, by which she lies with her books as the opera closes and through which an accordion player walks at the opera’s mid-point. The light reflections from the water’s movement set the tone for the enigmatic beauty which Xiao Hong epitomizes (or so I assume, as I don’t know her writing). It’s all very beautiful and rather mysterious.
The production values are high. Along with the set and lighting design, the singers and orchestra were near-flawless in their execution of a score which modulated voice and instruments. Each sung line could be understood (by Mandarin speakers, which I’m not) without reference to the (English and Chinese) surtitles. Louise Kwong in the lead role of Xiao Hong was on stage pretty much throughout the 80 minutes (no interval) playing time, which was especially impressive.
But did it move me to know more about Xiao Hong, or to have a better sense of how it must have been to live through her times, or to have been deserted by those she loved, or to have had access to the most venerated author of her times, Lu Xun? Well, frankly, no.
There were moments when the music got to me, and the finale was especially effective, with a wheat wielding chorus conjuring up an idealized pastoral homeland for the dying Xiao Hong into an intensifying crimson dusk. But for the most part it irritated me that so much talent and care had been deployed to render lines which for the most part were striking in their banality.
Maybe it’s my fault because I had to look so much at the surtitles, which perhaps do not do justice to the Chinese text. It may also be that to write about an author – and in this case two authors, with Lu Xun’s character sharing much of the stage time – is a tricky business, because the temptation is to allude to what they have written, allusions which someone like me doesn’t get, instead of summoning up a dramatic narrative for the work itself.
The fact is that by the end of the play I was bemused by its purpose and unmoved by its subject. Perhaps some day soon I shall be moved to read some Xiao Hong, and then I shall understand better what it was all about. Til then, this Heart of Coral will seem to me a little too mysteriously precious to be considered a truly significant work in its own right.
Heart of Coral is playing at Hong Kong City Hall until March 3rd. For more information, click here.
Comments
No comment at the moment.