SHENYANG PING OPERA THEATRE City Hall Theatre, November 4 This performance by the Shenyang Ping Opera crystallised some of the incongruities facing traditional Chinese opera in this modern age.
Witness the surprise appearance on stage at the start of the show of a mistress of ceremonies in the form of a shapely, heavily-rouged young woman in a tight-fitting floor-length gown of flaming red, with plunging decolletage and high-cut slits on either side. Welcome to Las Vegas.
The second act, set in the (13th-century) Song dynasty, had the typical premise of Chinese opera: a demure young lady being teased by her maid. But clipped to the women's waists were two pager-like black boxes, with cables hanging from them in loops and disappearing into their gowns - presumably transmitters for their clip-on microphones. Welcome to hi-tech.
But one should not be too hard on these performers, who were merely trying to modernise their material and please an international audience. For among the more than 300 regional operatic styles in China, only the Cantonese, Peking, and Chaozhou varieties are regularly performed in Hong Kong and overseas.
Ping opera is almost never heard of outside the mainland, despite its wide popularity in Beijing, Tianjin and other parts of northeastern China. A relative newcomer, Ping opera came into being only in this century. While it is almost identical to the much better-known Peking opera, Ping opera's special attraction lies in its music, which uses popular tunes from the story-singing genre of the region, such as dagu (drum-singing).
They are wonderfully refreshing and catchy. Among the performers, Feng Yuping was particularly outstanding for her vocal artistry.