Hong Kong Blog Day 3

Day 3 - Chinese Opera - From Tradition to the AvantgardeIt is Saturday, and I wake up to overcast skies that appear to be a mix of humid air and thick pollution.  A pall hangs over the city and the sun is a bright orange ball the color of a tangerine.  Too bad I didn’t make it to the Peak yesterday.  They are forecasting overcast weather and cool temperatures for the next several days, it seems.I met Molle, the fan from Perth, Australia, and we went up to the New Territories to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.  Molle had been there two years before and said it was definitely worth the trip.  We set off on the MTR and got off at the appointed station.  The museum, however, is a bit of a walk from the station and Molle didn’t remember exactly how to get there.  Because she is Chinese and speaks Cantonese, she went up to someone on the street and asked for directions.  We followed the directions we received to a “T”, but, after several minutes of walking, we still don’t see the museum.  Molle asked again for directions, and appeared to get an entirely different route to the Museum from a pedestrian.  We now find ourselves in a shopping mall and it is not at all clear which way we should be going to the museum (which is not mentioned on any signage inside the mall), so Molle stops and asks for directions a third time.  Following yet a third set of directions, we find ourselves in a part, and still we see no sign of the museum, not visually not on directional signs in the park.  But Molle says that the park is actually familiar from her previous visit and, if we walk through the park, we will come upon the museum, and so we do.

  This is a large, beautiful and fairly new museum.  The first stop is a lovely exhibition focused on the Cantonese opera star, Yam Kim Fai and a major author of Cantonese operas, Tong Tik Sang, who in the course of his short life (he died in his 40s) composed around 400 Cantonese operas, including many of the operas that Yam Kim Fai made famous. http://www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk/english/exhibition.htmThen it was a quick walk through the permanent exhibition on Cantonese opera before meeting up with the presenter of the Cantonese Opera appreciation class.

This class was taught by a Cantonese Opera performer, with demonstrations by her students.  The teacher was quite knowledgeable, but her students had only been studying for a year or two and were typical high school students.  This was too bad, because the presenter had a lot of knowledge and experience from studying and performing opera.  After a brief introduction, we then entered a performance of Cantonese Opera excerpts staged with full costumes, sets and lighting, but with pre-recorded music.  I don’t have any video from the actual performance, but this YouTube excerpt gives you a fair idea of what the performance was like.  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au9PPDlfVlc&feature=PlayList&p=2386A09EB848FA8A&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=14  The male performer was quite fine, but the leading lady had a tendency to sing flat which, given the piercing falsetto she sang in, was deadly.  After this excerpt was completed, I excused myself and went to look at other parts of the museum.

I was able to find a rare DVD of an opera film by Yam Kim Fai that was in color in the museum gift shop (though no subtitles) and so I picked it up, as well as a recent production of the Kunqu opera classicthat has English subtitles and English translations in the accompanying booklet.  I made a few other miscellaneous purchases of a batik pillow cover, some bookmarks, etc. and then Molle and I set off for our respective hotels. 

Later that night, I attended a performance of “Flee By Night” by the Danny Yung Experimental Theatre at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.  (see )  Here are some of the promotional videos that were done to advertise the production.  They do not reproduce the stage production, but rather are meditations on various aspects of the actual theater piece.Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/zuniicosahedron#p/u/7/hMpWoCpmnQY

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