Four established Chinese vocalists including soprano Zhu Ailan, mezzo-soprano Yang Guang, baritone Fu Haijing and tenor Dorjo Ciren will give a concert dedicated to their teacher Jiang Ying at Poly Theatre on July 4.
To most Chinese people, Jiang is not as famous as her husband Qian Xuesen, the renowned nuclear physicist. However she has had a very successful career in the vocal scene.
Once a wonderful soprano herself, Jiang later became a voice tutor at the Central Opera of China and Central Conservatory of Music. She has trained quite a few world known opera singers, including the four who are putting on the concert.
The concert will feature popular arias and trios selected from operas such as Carmen, Rigoletto, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and The Marriage of Figaro.
Jiang, 85, did not conceal her pride in her students, in an interview during a rehearsal break on Wednesday.
"All of them have a successful career in the opera world, having signed contracts with some prestigious opera houses," Jiang said.
Zhu has performed leading roles in more than 30 repertoires; Fu does a good job at the Metropolitan Opera and has worked with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo; and Yang and Dorjo Ciren have also established sound careers in the US and Europe.
During the rehearsal, Jiang would applaud whenever a student finished an aria. After hearing mezzo-soprano Yang Guang singing O don fatale from Verdi's Dan Carlo, she could not help but exclaim: "What a fabulous voice!"
Yet she did not forget to advise Yang on the approach to produce the voice.
"A gifted voice is one side, singing in the correct way or in the way that best fits yourself is also important," the old professor told her student.
Jiang went to Berlin to study with world renowned vocal professor Hermann Weissenborn at Berlin Music Conservatory in 1937. When the World War II broke out, she moved to Switzerland to pursue graduate studies with Hungarian soprano Ilona, specializing in German lieders and oratorios. Afterwards, she learned operas with the Wagnarian professor Emmy Kruer.
In 1955, she returned to China first as a soprano and a vocal tutor at the China Central Opera and four years later, she became a professor at China Central Conservatory of Music.
The past 45 years have witnessed her hard work as a diligent and capable teacher, thanks to her profound knowledge of Western music and history and her well-planned teaching methods.
Born in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, soprano Zhu is one of the most sought after interpreters of the lyric repertoire in the US.
Her roles include Cio-Cio-San in Madam Butterfly, Mimi in La Boheme, Micalea in Carmen, Liu in Turadot, Desdemona in Othello, Violetta in La Traviatta among many others.
Tenor Fu will return to the Metropolitan Opera in the 2003-04 season in the production of La Traviata and La Boheme. This follows his success in 2002-03 season when he made his debut in the Netherlands Opera and at Tokyo's Suntory Hall singing the lead role of Seikyo in the world premiere of Tan Dun's opera Tea.
Besides Metropolitan, Fu has sung with the Washington Opera, San Diego Opera, the Florida Grand Opera and Opera de Nice.
Mezzo-soprano Yang graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in 1996 and gained a scholarship to study at the Julliard School of Music in 2000.
In 1997, she won the prestigious Cardiff Singer of the world award, and in 2001, she won the first prize in Placido Domingo's Operalia competition.
Andrew Palmer, a US journalist, author and editor who specializes in classical music and musicians, acclaimed her as one of the 50 top world women operatic singers and included an interview-based profile into his book Divas in Their Own Words.
Dorjo Ciren, arguably the world's only Tibetan opera singer, learned to sing first at China's Northwest University of Nationalities and later at the Central Conservatory of Music. In 2000 he went to Mannes School of Music in New York.
The concert will also feature the US woman conductor Victoria Bond.
Although she only worked with Zhu before the concert, she appreciates the admiration and pride between professor Jiang and her talented students.
"The four singers have superb voices and from the rehearsals I could figure out that they were well trained in China," she said.
She said she also thinks highly of the orchestra of China Central Opera, which plays the accompaniment for the concert.
"It is a very experienced orchestra," Bond said.
She sensed tremendous development in China's orchestras over the past 10 years.
In 1994 she visited China for the first time, conducting the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and one year later she returned to Shanghai for another concert.
"At that time, the wind and brass parts of the orchestra were not so good, but now, it is no problem," she said.
Bond also said she feels very much at home in China, because in the World War II her singer father once served as a doctor in the US army in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, during the Chinese fight against the Japanese invaders.
"So I have known much about China from a very young age and now I'm learning the Chinese language with a Chinese friend in New York," she said. "I can speak a little now, but music is a language on a very deep level.
"What's more, I am Jewish and I think Jewish people and Chinese people have much in common in terms of their attitude to family, education and food," she added.
Besides being a conductor, Bond is also a composer and her work ranges from the symphonic and operatic compositions to music theatre, ballet scores, and pieces for youth concerts.
Her work has been widely performed in the United States, Europe and Asia, and she has been commissioned by such prestigious organizations as the Houston Symphony, the American Ballet Theatre and the Pennsylvania Ballet.
Born with a singer father and pianist mother in Los Angeles, Bond began improvising at the piano well before her formal training began. She studied composition at the University of Southern California and later at the Juilliard School of Music where she became the first woman to earn a doctorate degree in orchestral conducting in 1977.
(China Daily July 3, 2004)
