Violins, Oboes and Peking Opera seems to be a strange combination,
but the successful integration of a symphony orchestra and Peking
Opera delighted the audience in Beijing, the home of the
traditional Chinese opera.
Invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the University of
Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra from the United States is here as
part of the "Meet in Beijing" Arts Festival. The orchestra
accompanied Chinese artist Sun Ping singing three modern pieces of
Peking Opera last Sunday evening.
Professor Zheng Xiaoyun, director of Center for Arts Education of
Tsinghua University, said, "It's wonderful that foreigners are able
to understand and demonstrate traditional Chinese culture. I
believe the attempt will help develop Peking Opera in modern
times."
In
fact, Chinese tried performing the opera with western instruments
during the period of the 1960s and 1970s and the symphony
orchestra-accompanied Peking Opera prevailed for a decade. But the
kind of opera gave way to traditional performance of the opera in
the following two decades.
Encouraged by former Chinese ambassador to the United States Li
Zhaoxing, the Peking Opera Artist Sun Ping started collaborating
with the University of Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra in 2000.
To
her great surprise, the performer who has been engaged in Peking
Opera for 30 years discovered that the oboe was able to take the
place of the Jinghu, major instruments in the opera.
Ricardo Averbach, conductor of the Symphony Orchestra, said that
Peking Opera is unique in form and the singer is always free to
change tempo, which challenges orchestra members to play at the
same speed.
"Sometimes, I have to give up following the music score but follow
Sun's tone in her singing," he said. "It's almost incredible for a
symphony orchestra."
After three months of rehearsals, the orchestra made their debut in
Philadelphia on March 29 and the performance turned out to be a
complete success.
Averbach said that it is the first time in the century-long history
of the university orchestra that it has combined with the Chinese
musical form.
"I'm trying to do this hoping to learn more about the prime Chinese
art," said Averbach, who added the Jinghu and Pipa, two traditional
Chinese musical instruments, to the performance in Beijing to make
more authentic Peking Opera.
Henry A. Kissinger, former US secretary of State, sent a letter to
the University of Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, saying, "You
have already made a valuable contribution to the enjoyment and
appreciation of China's great musical tradition by presenting an
acclaimed program earlier this spring that integrated classical
Western music with that of the Peking Opera. "
"As a music lover and believer in cross-cultural exchange and
understanding as a significant factor in the resolution of tensions
among nations, I applaud this important step you have taken,"
Kissinger said in the letter.
Averbach hopes to devote himself to developing the two art forms
into a new one in a couple of years. "The final goal is to create
big interest in the western world. When Peking Opera is more
accessible, western audiences will go back to the roots of the
traditional Chinese art."
Sun Ping said that she and the university orchestra will start
working on the symphonic Peking Opera musical "Butterfly Lovers".
The music will be jointly written by composers from China and the
United States.
(People’s Daily 05/28/2001)