On the Destruction of the Cantonese Opera Aesthetic and its Rebirth
There is, in my opinion, a most regrettable opinion and sentiment amongst a significant portion of the young Cantonese speaking population of Hong Kong that deems Cantonese opera, along with the traditional Canto-pop (which drew much inspiration from Cantonese opera, from lyrics to instruments and singing techniques) of the 80s and 90s, to be unaesthetic. This is putting it lightly. The words often used to describe them include “old-fashioned” 老土 lou2 tou2, “of bad taste” leung 哴 leung1, or even “cultureless”. Indeed, several weeks ago I came across this astounding post on Golden 高登 where the opinions that “Cantonese opera is the most lowly and unasethetic shit ever” and “the sooner Cantonese opera becomes extinct, the better” were enthusiastically expressed.
The regrettability of this of course stems from the sentiment, the 唏噓-ness one inevitably feels when one is confronted with a posterity who rejects and negates your own cultural heritage. But this is merely a reason why some of us feel so to some degree — I cannot claim that I fully enjoy Cantonese opera in all its strange configurations. Indeed, as traitorous as it sounds, I find Suzhouese Pingtan 蘇州評彈 and Beijing opera to be more pleasant to the ear than a lot of Cantonese opera. More importantly, this is a reason that only explains the phenomenon, it is not a normative reason whatsoever. It explains why we (I shall hereafter use “we” to mean those of us who feel so — I am fully aware of the fact that there are plenty amongst us who can’t give tuppence about these matters) might feel unhappy, but it does not give us the right to feel unhappy. We might feel indignant, but this reason does not explain why we are right and justified to feel indignant.
But we need not go look for a reason to feel indignant — or rather, we need not bethink that we are cursed to labour to look for a reason to indignant, for belief requires reasons few. And what begets and justifies belief better emotion? Emotion is its own justification.
Yet emotion might be born out of some yet to be ordered and structure proto-existence of messy reason, the kind of existence that precedes the division of the Yin and Yang, before the “in the beginning there was the word”. Yet, it was reason. And perhaps, somewhere in this essence of primitive reason, lies some a scarring witnessing of the most traumatising destruction of beauty by beauty. We were scarred. We are scarred.
1. The arbitrariness of aesthetics
One of the often-advanced argument-reason amalgams for celebrating the death of Cantonese opera, and (alas!) even all Sinitic opera, is that Cantonese opera is fundamentally unasethetic. God has made you ugly and unseemingly and nothing can make you not ugly and not unseemingly — they say, almost imitating Winston’s Churchill unequivocally clear proclamation that “My dear you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.” The piece of evidence they draw immediately in support of this is the extraordinarily high-pitched singing, commonly seen in so many of her ungodly operatic majesty the Liza Wang Ming Chuen 汪明荃’s performances. The youtube compilation of her various Cantonese opera and Canto-pop performances, titled “The heaven-shaking, out of this world performance of Wang Ming Chuen’s devil-kissed voice” 汪明荃被撒旦吻過的聲音驚天駭人天籟演出 should speak much of how the young see her. But it is rather difficult to reject the criticism, notwithstanding the harshness of the opinion, that her performances, really do challenge many of us to find asetheticality. Indeed, those amongst us the young generation who still seek enjoyability in Cantonese opera find little appeal in her performance with Leslie Cheung. The performance of one of the classics, that tune we all know either from our aunts and grandmothers or from those tunes we hum by the corner of our mouths with bastardised lyrics — — 帝女花香夭 Dai Nui Faa. The performance in question was clearly one of Leslie’s best and most impressive. Even those who profess an aesthetic allergy towards Cantonese opera must be moved. Yet, few amongst us would not protest against Liza’s screech.
I thought I liked all western opera. I thought I just liked opera. That was until I visited Vienna, and did absolutely nothing except visiting Central Café in the day to write, and attend concerts at night. It became clear afterwards that I did not exactly like Italian opera. The irony and the absurdity! If opera by its own definition is Western, then Western opera is by definition Italian! The language of opera is Italian as the language of philosophy is Greek! To like opera and dislike Italian opera is simply a logical contradiction. But hear me. The realisation did not come in an explosion of hate, but more like a tempered ascension towards calm recognition that one does not like what one is presented. The “does not like” is not so negative as a kind of detest precisely, but it is more a sanguine expression of “I cannot purchase this aesthetic.” Why can’t I purchase the aesthetics of Italian opera? Well, I can’t stomach the overabundance of exchange of air-kisses for one, nor could I tolerate all that hugging and presumably over-the-top romantic lyrics that doth make one’s skin crawl if only one could understand Italian, and most importantly — their emotions expressed seem to be ones I do not find positive and enjoyable.
I, on the other hand, really like German opera. The Queen of the Night section from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, was one of my absolute favourites. How could one deny the beauty of Diana Damrau’s performance, her embodiment of the Night Queen, as she attacks, flies, bombards, tickles, and caresses, with that her of a voice, that travelleths between notes separated by octaves, and withdrawals of breaths separated by time long enough to suffocate one spent to bring the screams and proclamations of unearthly notes? As she screams, she projects, her mouth, in a physical paradox of both mechanical and natural movement, giveth man the most stupendous, earth-shattering, flabberghasting passions. The violins in the back, united in mathematical and divine harmony, support, respond, and foretell her complaints and explosions. Notes as high as that of the diamonds fixated on that highest celestial crystal sphere, and notes buried as deep as the roots of the earth. She travels between these heavens and hells with both pain and infinite passionate composure.
Why do I profess such admiration for Damrau, yet can honestly and genuinely make such profession for Wang? And why are you, my reader, moved by my words — or at least, more willing and ready to be moved by my words of praise for Damrau, than any such potential words I might give to Wang?
2. The Logic of Asethetics — and its Destruction
I hereby ask the question, how has Cantonese opera become unasethetic to the people who have begotten it? Of course, as mentioned above, there are those who object this question, for they reject its unescapable premise and postulation — that is, that Cantonese was aesthetic, once. That it had been aesthetic before. Which implies Cantonese opera was by its nature asetheticable — potentially aesthetic, that it possesses the potential to be aesthetic. They, perhaps either by bigotry or by some line of reasoning, who have come to the conclusion that Cantonese is unaesthetic because it is fundamentally unaesthetic in the same way that a flame is warm because fire is hot, they object to my question — for in their eyes it is akin to asking how has a female dog become a bitch.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Cantonese opera, if it is indeed unasethetic, it is because it is fundamentally unasethetic. Some point to the Gaaseng假聲, the deliberate pinching and squeezing of the vocal cords, mostly common in pieces sung by Dan旦角 characters, to be the source of their queasiness and sense of unease before Cantonese operatic music. But what is called Gaaseng假聲 in Cantonese is but only falsetto in Italian. One must pursue the claim that falsetto is also fundamentally unasethetic if one is to make this argument in full. If one does not brave that route, then one must surely abandon the argument that Cantonese opera is fundamentally unasethetic in the sense that it is atomistically unasethetic. That is to say, one cannot claim that Cantonese opera is unasethetic, because it is made of unasethetic atoms, atoms of unasethetics. Of course, one can make the lazy argument that because Cantonese opera is made up of more atoms of unasethetics than Italian opera is, Italian opera is therefore more aesthetic. If that is so, the possibility of gradation comes in. One can increase the aestheticality of Cantonese opera, by, well, operating that aesthetic formula — increase the portion of aesthetic atoms, decrease that of the unasethetic atoms, achieve a net aesthetic atom dominance. Tada. However, this argument’s weakness, in taking this theory of aesthetic atomism, is that it cannot explain why Gaaseng 假聲 in Cantonese in their view is positively considered to be a fundamental unasethetic, while falsetto in their view at least potentially aesthetic. The asetheticality of the atom has changed depending on the compound it is in. This theory of asetheticality calculation, must depend on atoms themselves being unchanging bearers of asetheticality. Yet this implies that the falsetto atom in Italian opera must be as unequivocally repugnant as the Gaaseng 假聲 atom in Cantonese opera. He is therefore forced to concede that configuration and composition and combination of the mixture of the pool of atoms to make the opera, creates more properties than their mere direct sum of the properties of the aesthetic and unasethetic atoms. Indeed, it is this composition and combination that begets the properties of asetheticality and unasetheticality, not the atoms themselves.
Knowing this, it becomes meaningless to speak of aesthetic and unasethetic atoms, for aestheticality and unasetheticality are now no longer properties of atoms but properties of combinations and composition. An oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms cannot be wet. Water is wet. In fact, the claim that it is combination and composition that begets asetheticality, is but musical common sense. Notes themselves a music does not make. It is tunes, melody, pitch, harmony, that does make a music.
So it is the combination that expresses and begets aestheticality. But we must be clear, that while it expresses asetheticality, it is not itself asetheticality. It is an embodiment, a demonstration of asetheticality, but it is not itself asetheticality. La Liberté guidant le people is a beautiful painting, but it is not itself beauty. A flower smells nice, but it itself is not nice smell. We recognise asetheticality, or rather — something that we identify and recognise as asetheticality. We smell something, then we recognise it is nice, or disgusting — we do not recognise niceness and disgustingness prior to the smell. A concept of aesthetics is therefore inevitably involved to measure the expression that confronts us to determine if it is aesthetic, or not. In this conception, it means the metric of asetheticality, is mind-dependent, in our heads, and employed to measure. This metric, like that we use to measure justice, to mathematically and logically reason, is a logic in of itself.
It is a logic. It is a set of propositions, a set of schemas.
We cannot recognise Cantonese opera as beautiful, because the aesthetic, the logic responsible for recognising Cantonese opera-like objects to be beautiful, to be beautiful as Cantonese operas, has been rendered inoperative. It has been rendered inoperative perhaps by human destruction (that the logic has been damaged), by natural decay (inaction and insufficient operation, lack of renewal and insupply of new blood), by interference and domination of another logic (that people have become accustomed to western musicalities and artistic aesthetics that Cantonese aesthetics has become alien and unfamiliar without proper renaturalisation). We do not appreciate Cantonese opera, because we cannot appreciate Cantonese opera. We cannot appreciate Cantonese opera, because we did not learn how to, we’ve forgotten how, and we’ve become unable to initiate the attempt. We cannot do it because we are both familiar and unfamiliar with it. We are unfamiliar with it because we don’t know how to appreciate it, and yet we are familiar with it because we mutually co-inform each other’s experience and existence. We are therefore, stuck in this limbo we were are forced to exist in its same space, yet awkwardly not know how to interact with it. This feeling, is exactly that same feeling you have with that kind but distant aunt, that very distant 舅母 or 姑媽 who hums Dai Nui Faa while she chews on your arse in Mahjong. Some people, unnerved by the constant patting on the head, the sudden outbursts of Cantonese operatic passion, falls victim to a secret, suppressed, and deranged wish that she be dead.
3. The aesthetic of the incomprehensible
I attended this Baroque music evening concert at the chapel of Exeter concert with a couple of very good friends. It was absolutely divine. I shall spare you descriptions of the beauty, so very magnified by the magic of spirits.
It was then that I remarked that a good reason why I found this beautiful, or that I was quite ready to find it beautiful, is because I absolutely did not understand what the hell the singer was singing. It was all Italian to me.
Language is itself a logic. In knowing the language, one is opened to a realm of logic used to measure the asetheticality of a form. When we are confronted with an object which exdues expressions that we can plausibly believe to be bearers of asetheticality, we receive them, and then measure their asetheticality, using the best logics we have appropriate for measuring the kinds of objects the object most resembles. If it most resembles Italian opera, we will get our logic most close-looking to the Italian opera aesthetic logic to measure the object that resembles Italian opera. We, us colonised minds, have some kind of western aesthetic logic to measure the object confronting us, but we do not have the Italian language amongst us, so in those categories in which linguistic comprehension is used as a variable for determining asetheticality, it is left — not blank! — but with a benefit of the doubt. Of course, we can also talk about how this depository of the benefit of the doubt is also influenced by other extra-logical factors, like our impression of that culture, its associated socio-economic strengths, etcetera. But that would be a distraction. However, in the case of Cantonese, we know the language. So, not only is there no room for inserting that benefit of the doubt, because the Cantonese logic has been damaged, rendered partially inoperative, and most importantly, have already had some of its functions overtaken by those corresponding faculties in a western aesthetic logic, the input of the Cantonese language variable outputs unasetheticality in this hybrid dysfunctional logic. We think Cantonese opera is unasethetic, because we are using the wrong metrics to see it. I found it aesthetic, because in my non-understanding, the perchanced benefit of the doubt I have bestowed upon it, produced a net asetheticality. This is also why I enjoy Suzhouese Pingtan 評彈。It is why I enjoyed Beijing opera, why I found Meishan’s singing in Raise the Red Lantern, as equally pinched as Wang’s, aesthetic, or at the very least, asetheticable, while Wang’s was plainly unasetheticable.
This is also the very reason why Mandarin speakers — and indeed so many Sinitic speakers find Cantonese songs, or even Cantonese as a language, pleasant, despite there is really no absolute fundamental reason to. It is because through Canto-pop, an aesthetic logic has been evolved in their minds, thereby allowing them to recognise that canto pop, and Cantonese, are aesthetically pleasing. Hokkien, Shanghainese, and Hakka, all Sinitic languages with much less success in this area, are only therefore naturally less aesthetic.
4. Reconstruction and rebirth
How can we recover our sensitivity, our Cantonese operatic aesthetic logic?
One of the reasons, or rather mechanisms that enticed me to be more ready to accept Beijing operatic aesthetics, was that in one my first and most critical exposures to Peking opera, Farwell My Concubine, I was first exposed to the boys singing in the punishing cold to “open their voices” 開聲, before I was gradually transitioned to the more falsetto singing by Dieyi. I saw how there was an alternative metric to measure an aesthetic component, and how could one arrive at that alternative metric to already familiar metrics I do indeed purchase. I saw the existential and ontological similarity between the boys’ light singing, and the full project of the falsetto.
Listen to Sabine Devieilhe’s rendition of Rameau’s Air de la Folie, to Jakub Józef Orliński’s performance of Vivaldi’s Vedrò con mio diletto, to the King’s College of Cambridge choir offering of O Holy Night, then listen to蔣月泉’s 絕世rendition of 《劍閣聞鈴》, 朱雪琴 and 薛惠君’s 《妝台報喜》, and郭彬卿’s 《瀟湘夜雨》. At least some of us, in this process, will admit a sparkle of asetheticality, however momentary and ephemeral. It is the same in how one when one finishes listening to a sequence of story-esque pieces, of say, The Steadfast Tin Solider, Moonlight Sonata, A Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Rage over a lost penny, one can see how beauty manifests in both familiar and distinct terms in Ambush from ten sides 十面埋伏.
The first thing that a Cantonese opera rejuvenation project can do, is to concede partial defeat. Certain elements and aesthetical components have already been deemed unasethticable, however they are combined. Abandon these components, at least for the time being, and adopt more palatable components. Adapt western operatic singing techniques, and in whatever manner possible, coordinate and configure them to produce a coherent product.
This might sound most traitorous, but it has already been done, and it lives on in the form of Cantopop. One can see that in early days of development of Cantopop, or indeed, of Chinese pop altogether, it was a careful and experimental selective adoption of old operatic elements, mixed with western techniques. Works such as 《情義兩心堅》、《父母恩》、《滄海一聲笑》、《我是痴情無限》、《問誰領風騷》、《似是故人來》、《小李飛刀》、《上海灘》、《雙星情歌》all in various ways exude their inheritance from old Cantonese opera, either in their singing techniques, in the instruments, in the lyrics. This was an age, where new Ci-like works were produced, while ancient works were re-adapted for the modern age. Masterpieces like Wang Fei’s performance of《但願人長久》, a timeless adaption of Su Shi’s 水調歌頭 and Roman Tam’s rendition of Yue Fei 岳飛’s most patriotic《滿江紅》come to mind. Indeed, Roman Tam’s rendition unmistakably exuded an air of Cantonese operatic. This era where the traditional gave birth to a new, was one of glory, that one whose aesthetics were self-contained, consistent, coherent, and complete. One would not be surprised if in a thousand years that these pieces would be studied as literary pieces, in the same manner we study Song dynasty Ci.
醉擁孤衾，悲不禁，夜半飲泣空帳獨懷憾。 from 《雙星情歌》
俗塵渺渺，天意茫茫，將你共我分開。
斷腸字點點，風雨聲連連，似是故人來。From 《似是故人來》
一代天驕，千秋知我名號！談笑造時勢，問誰領風騷？！ From《問誰領風騷》
The modernisation of Cantonese opera, be it through selective westernisation, selective abandonment of some its components, or the introduction of traditional Cantonese operatics into modern musical forms, will inevitably have us face the question — is it still meaningful to call or recognise whatever comes out of this process as Cantonese opera? And how will proper, traditional, genuine Cantonese opera stand then? This is a legitimate question, but one that we should not expend too much worry upon. This new Cantonese opera, if done properly, shall be able to connect to the hearts of the young, and the old and traditional, for it acts as a bridge of asetheticality. Notice those who most enjoy traditional Cantonese opera, are most likely also those who enjoy Cantopop of the 80s and 90s. Conversely, those who enjoy Cantopop of the 80s and 90s, are more likely to be ready to enjoy at least some elements of Cantonese opera, than say those who don’t. Indeed, it was this classical era of Cantopop that got me intrigued in Cantonese opera.
On the other hand, one might also capitalise on the element of mystery, the benefit of the doubt mechanism I have relayed above. Abandon Cantonese as a language of Cantonese opera, and substitute to with something incomprehensible, but nevertheless aesthetically compatible with the rest of the Cantonese operatics. Shanghainese would be a good candidate.
But this is not enough, of course. However aesthetical it might be, it is useless if it does not connect to the modern age in terms of substance. It is bad as it is to listen to people screech in ways I cannot possibly understand to be musically pleasant, it is even worse if they were all dolled up and flutter-dancing around in traditional Chinese garden-labyrinths, as they were in遊園驚夢.
Shakespeare’s plays are a bit tough to stomach, even for the most pretentious pricks today. Yet, I went through all of Charles III, a play distinctively written in quasi-Shakespearean English, in one sitting. When I unglued myself from my computer screen, I was overwhelmed by a desire to watch more plays, to read more plays, to learn more about Shakespearean plays, and even write my own. This stands in stark contrast to that time where I attended a rendition of Henry V, where all the cultural-pretentiousness I could muster in me could not make me stay awake. Charles III engages me because it engages with a topic I am interested in — the British monarchy, British constitutionalism, parliamentarianism. High culture need not engage with high topics, but it must be engaged with them highly, in a manner that elevates their vulgarity and mundanity into an art form. It is to elevate the Harem and transform it into Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. But most importantly, it has to engage with that which one belongs. Few today would want to go see some people painted with silly faces dance and sing about some excerpt of ancient history that completely matters not to them, but plenty I believe would be at the very least intrigued by a Cantonese opera about our society, our existence, our era. One about a household stuck in a shoebox appartment, one about the highest political family of our city and its various Mabethian conspiracies… the possibilities are endless.
There is of course, finally the matter of proliferation and popularisation. One cannot just hope that these fruits will find its music-knower, its 知音人. The actual policies conducive to this end I know not, but in my point of view, one would be well-advised to combine Cantonese opera and operatics with other art forms. The short original Cantonese opera composition in the film麥兜响噹噹, presumably titled 《婦女更年期》demonstrates roughly what I mean. But not all or even a majority of these popularisation attempts must come in this de-elevation of the art. Embed Cantonese opera as background music in films and tv-series. Have them enhance the mood of a piece in the same way that Thus Spoke Zarathustra delivered the subtle message of evolution and progress in 2001 A Space Odyssey; include them as plot-devices like Beethoven’s Ninth in A Clockwork Orange; have them supplement and reply to the plot like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony in Spielberg’s Minority Report. Heck, even just reciting the goddamn lyrics as if it were just poetry would do it, like how Dylan Thomas’s famous villanelle about death was taken and practically reinterpreted to reflect upon the death of the human race, of human civilisation in Interstellar. Piggy-back the already popular medium of entertainment for one’s own popularisation is what I say to you.
5. 泉臺上再設新房 地府陰司裡再覓那平陽門巷
Do I hold optimism for the future of Cantonese opera? From the above in terms of my most enthusiastic analysis, it would be an unequivocal yes. Yet, there are factors beyond our control. I shall say this, that a Cantonese opera house named Xiqu Center, forebodes much about the destruction of the Cantonese opera aesthetic, and its possibility for rebirth.
