A new production opened on Wednesday under the aegis of the National Palace Museum’s New Melody series (故宮新韻). The Legend of the White Snake (白蛇傳), adapted and performed by the Guoguang Opera Company (國光劇團), will be performed at the National Palace Museum’s auditorium (國立故宮博物院文會堂) every Wednesday afternoon between 2:30pm and 4pm until Sept. 21.
Although condensed for the relatively short 90-minute slot, the New Melody series of opera productions have a number of important advantages over regular productions, especially for those unfamiliar with the medium. First and foremost is the effort that the museum has put into ensuring that the performances are accompanied by projected text in both English and Chinese, allowing English-speaking visitors greater facility in following the progress of the story.
There is also the free admission, and the fact that the museum is able to procure the talents of some of Taiwan’s most outstanding opera companies. Guoguang is one of Taiwan’s largest and most highly esteemed opera companies, and this production includes many top-ranking performers. As with all New Melody productions, it is linked with works held in the museum’s own collection: in this case Sunset Over Tower, From 10 Beauties of West Lake (西湖十景圖冊之雷峰夕照) from the Song Dynasty, which depicts the scenery of West Lake in Hangzhou, China, where much of the story is set, and Jinshan Temple: From 16 Views of Huapan Mountain (畫盤山十 六景冊之金山寺), a drawing of the Jinshan Temple (金山寺), at which a key scene in the story takes place.
Photo Courtesy of NPM
The Tale of the White Snake is a folk story widely familiar to Chinese-speakers around the world. During the Qing Dynasty it became the subject of numerous dramatizations, most famously in the kun and Beijing opera styles. Guoguang has drawn on some of the best of the ample material available for its condensed version. Kun and Beijing opera are sometimes presented together, and Guoguang has done this to give audiences a glimpse of the two singing styles, indicating which is being used at the beginning of each scene. This is tremendously useful for those who want to take their appreciation of Chinese opera a step further than admiring the colorful costumes and acrobatics.
The story tells of a young scholar who meets a young woman on the banks of West Lake on a rainy afternoon and falls hopelessly in love with her. Unbeknownst to him, she is in fact a white serpent spirit, and her secret identity is revealed to him by a monk named Fa Hai (法海), who forcibly separates the couple. The scholar is at first compliant to Fa Hai’s wishes, but subsequently realizes that love conquers all, and begs forgiveness from his beloved. The couple face many trials that test their love, for Fa Hai is dedicated to cleansing the world of demons and other supernatural beings. The story provides scenes of comedy, romantic melodrama and also acrobatics.
There is a splendid battle sequence when the white serpent draws on her magical powers in a battle against Fa Hai, sparking a rapturous response from a first-day crowd Wednesday that included some young children. The reconciliation scene between the scholar and his lover is wonderfully comic, poking fun at the scholar’s attempts to maintain his dignity even when clearly in the wrong.
Guoguang’s production for the National Palace Museum is designed as entry-level entertainment, and in this it is remarkably successful, providing a real taste of diverse operatic skills in an accessible manner without obviously dumbing down the intricacies of the performance.
Bookings for seats can be made online at tech2.npm.gov.tw/signup/frontend/index.asp, with some seats available at the door on a first come, first serve basis.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby