Chan Hing-yan
“Datong: The Chinese Utopia” is composer Chan Hing-yan’s second major collaboration with the HK Arts Festival, after 2013’s “Xiao Hong.” The story focuses on the exile of Chinese political visionary Kang Youwei. Evelyn Lok speaks to Chan ahead of the show.
Chan Hing-yan: I guess there’s some pressure this year to be at least as successful, if not a bit more. Last time it was more focused on a central character, and this time each character [Kang and his daughter] gets almost equal stage time. There’s a greater challenge this time because the story is more complicated: it has lots of jumps in time. You can easily do that in film, but how do you express that in music? That’s something that requires strong “kung fu” [hard work and skills] and makes this year’s project three times more difficult than writing for “Xiao Hong.”
HK: What can we expect from “Datong?”
CH: A word to describe the music would be “eclectic.” You’ll hear a range of Chinese instruments and musical styles. The first act starts during a sermon: I had to think about how to incorporate hymnal music within the verse. Another highlight is when the Empress Dowager Cixi sings in a Peking opera style—how do you make it not seem arbitrary that you’re incorporating that style? There might be some parts that sound similar to a famous aria or two… but it will be a natural progression, and not just a bunch of random musical chop suey.
HK: “Datong” is an Opera sung mostly in Putonghua. Why’s that?
CH: Putonghua only has four tones, so it’s easier than Cantonese. If you were to write a melody suited for nine tones [in Cantonese], it’d only work if it was really connected with the lyrics. It might not sound that different for gweilos, but for Hongkongers, when the tone is sung differently, it sounds incredibly jarring. For “Xiao Hong,” I didn’t really care for the [linguistic] tones, and I gained the freedom to let my melody flow wherever I wanted.
HK: “Datong” is deeply rooted in political change. Were you affected by the Occupy protests while you were composing last year?
CH: The title of the show is “Datong” [utopia] and the opening lines of the opera are “這是亂世” [the world is full of chaos]”—of course people would think that there is a connection. I’m a university professor, and I was worried about my students, especially in the beginning when we didn’t know what kind of actions might be taken by the government. But my music wasn’t implicitly or explicitly influenced by the movement at all. I think it’s not that current events affected this production, but the fact that the opera itself is just so theatrical.
HK: As a professor, what do you think of the next generation of Hong Kong musicians?
CH: Hong Kong has some top-ranked musicians. But cities like Singapore and Taiwan present the arts with a national identity, whereas sometimes Hong Kong often has a bit of an identity crisis, especially after the Handover.
See “Datong: The Chinese Utopia” on Mar 20-22, 8pm. Theatre, City Hall, 5 Edinburgh Place, Central, $180-350 from www.urbtix.hk.