Forever ambiguous

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-05 07:54

The best way to experience Peking Opera, or Italian opera for that matter, is in a theater. Nothing beats the sound of musical instruments and the human voice in an acoustic environment.

To reach a wider audience, however, operas need a helping hand. Strangely, the movie theater, an erstwhile rival that drove opera away from the center stage, could be reformatted as its savior.

In 2006, the Metropolitan Opera in New York began to broadcast a series of performances live via satellite into movie houses around the world, especially those in North America. For the 2006-07 season, a total of 324,000 tickets were sold. During my visit to Houston I bought two of these tickets - for The First Emperor and I Puritani. I couldn't say it was just like watching a live opera, but it was the closest I could think of.

The very first film in China's cinematic history is a clip of a Peking Opera performance shot in 1905 in Beijing, sung - or shall I say mimed since it did not have sound - by Tan Xinpei. Tan, a towering figure at the time, is featured in the new movie Forever Enthralled under the alias of Thirteen Swallows. Of course, if I have to name one person who epitomizes the art form, it must be Mei Lanfang, the premier exponent who specialized in female roles and the raison d'etre for the movie.

Now, you can say Mei was an early adopter of new technology. In 1920, he committed two of his opera scenes, Goddess of Heaven Scatters Flowers and Chunxiang Disturbs Class, onto celluloid. In 1948, he made China's first color film - a feature-length opera called Regrets of Life and Death.

Mei also made movies in the US and the former Soviet Union, or more accurately, he let filmmakers in the technologically advanced countries document his performances. The one with Paramount, shot while he was 36, is said to present the clearest image from his prime. Film footage of his performances as late as 1960, one year before his death, still exist, constituting and attesting to the immortality of his art.

The biopic Forever Enthralled - its Chinese title is Mei Lanfang - premiers today nationwide and is an effort to capture the great master at three periods in his life: first, as he defeats a predecessor and gains fame as the darling favorite of the day; then as he conducts a romance with a female star who impersonates male roles, played by Zhang Ziyi; and last, when he defies Japanese invaders and refuses to perform.

In subject matter, this is Chen Kaige's follow-up to Farewell, My Concubine, which is artistically more brilliant. Some say the 1993 film is a veiled biography of Mei Lanfang because it featured one of his signature roles. Rumor has it Mei's family even pondered a libel suit. The film, however, went on to become a landmark in Chinese cinema, winning hearts and accolades across the world.

To put the name Mei Lanfang on screen is, in a sense, to put shackles around the filmmaker. Even though several of the supporting characters are composite and Mei's three wives, whom he had at the same time for a while, have been "toned down", with Wife No 1 completely whitewashed and Wife No 3 downgraded to the status of an amorous affair, Mei as portrayed in this elaborate period drama simply does not come out as sharp and three-dimensional. Instead, he seems to have made up his mind on everything all along.

In the film, Mei Lanfang does not hesitate much when throwing down the gauntlet - or taking it up - in front of an old master. He does not suffer from qualms of guilt when flirting with the Zhang Ziyi character while his wife watches from the balcony. He seems convinced that giving up the stage is the only right choice in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. The character does not change or show moral anguish. Rather, the burden of deliberation is shifted to those around him - his rival, his wife and the Japanese soldier caught between a rock and a hard place. Most of all, his mentor, who forsakes his own career to guide him, is constantly fighting for something.

It reminds me of Mozart in the biopic Amadeus. While much more colorful, the title character remains blissfully ignorant of his rival's evil intentions. That's why the real star of the movie is the rival, who has plenty of screen time to vent his emotions. Likewise, Mei Lanfang's mentor is much better delineated.

In Farewell, My Concubine, the main character briefly has a rich patron, and they are suggested to be sexually entangled. Early in the new movie, Mei Lanfang is led to a room where two young men are sitting on the laps of patrons. When Mei is asked to do the same, he slaps the person in the face. Later, when he forms a friendship with his mentor, the latter yells "We're clean!" to his own family members, who watch in horror.

Opera singers in drag used to be commonplace when women were not allowed on stage. It was similar to the Shakespearean theater when teenage boys played female roles. But there is something beyond the necessity, or even the latent homosexuality and transvestitism, for male actors to impersonate female roles, called male dan in Chinese, and less frequently, vice versa. Cast aside your prejudices and dogmatic beliefs, and you'll see that there is an aesthetic reason to the phenomenon.

With gender equality, women have a chance to play these roles and arguably with more natural grace and credibility. But the rare appearance of a really good male dan (equivalent perhaps to "male soprano"?) set pulses racing regardless of gender, age or sexual orientation. Many have told me that there is a beauty to a man being more feminine on stage than a woman. A beautiful woman playing a beautiful woman is basically like Whitney Houston starring in the movie The Bodyguard. Nothing to write home about. But with a man, it's like a magic show. You know it's not real, but you're fooled into believing it nonetheless.

Some cite technical reasons, such as men being more forceful in certain dance moves. But I don't believe that explains the appeal of male dan. I think people do not want to admit it, or even ponder on it, because it is politically incorrect. The allure of a male dan lies in its sexual ambiguity. Why do men have their singing voices soar into the falsetto range? If you simply want to hear a high C sung beautifully, you can have a mezzo-soprano, but that would deprive you of the guilty pleasure of momentary confusion of the gender of the person with this voice. It could belong to a castrato, or Pavarotti, or Michael Jackson, or Vitas the Russian pop star.

Art can imitate nature; it can also defy nature. Many artists infuse naturalness with unnaturalness. Mei Lanfang's artistry includes minute details of feminine movements, yet everything else is utterly stylized. Peking Opera on the whole has elaborate costumes but minimal sets. It's not a realistic art. Rather, it works on the imagination. Great arts are mostly an acquired taste.