As any artist or performer in China knows, it is impossible to predict what will set off the mercurial culture censors who have sweeping power over the content of film, music, television and print.
On Sunday, it was the depiction of a sexually aroused, anatomically correct male donkey and references to capital punishment that nearly derailed an ambitious interpretation of the Handel opera Semele, the tragic tale of what happens when a lustful god, a vengeful goddess and an impressionable young maiden are ensnared in a love triangle.
In the end, officials allowed the donkey to remain onstage, but they insisted on a number of last-minute changes that significantly altered the production and left the audience perplexed.
The opera, directed by Zhang Huan (張洹), one of China’s most boundary-pushing artists, sold out nine performances last year in Brussels with its melding of Baroque music, Greek mythology, Chinese cultural references and a few modern touches that included sumo wrestlers, flashes of nudity and rousing audience participation.
Lady Linda Wong Davies, an opera patron whose London-based foundation brought the production to the annual Beijing Music Festival, said her goal was to expose Chinese audiences to Western-style opera and to build bridges between China and the rest of the world.
“I wanted to bring to life an 18th-century German composer’s work through the eyes of a contemporary Chinese artist,” she said.
Even before the cast arrived from Europe, Chinese officials who saw the production in Brussels insisted on a number of changes: They vetoed the singing of the -Communist anthem The Internationale during the finale — too provocative, apparently — and suggested a costume change for the Greek chorus, whose burgundy and saffron robes too closely resembled those worn by Tibetan monks.
Those and a few other demands — no nudity, less violence and fewer sexually suggestive gestures — were easy enough to meet, Zhang said.
However, after officials from the Ministry of Culture watched a dress rehearsal on Saturday, they decided that the donkey — two actors draped in fabric — was revealing too much of the animal’s anatomy. More ominously, they objected to a short documentary, which was screened during the overture, which explained how the gracefully carved frame of a 450-year-old Chinese temple had made its way onto the stage of the Poly Theater in central Beijing.
Three years ago, Zhang bought the building and its contents from an impoverished family who had been its occupants for two decades. While taking apart the structure, the director discovered a diary written by the broken-hearted husband. The man, Fang Jixin, wrote about how the adulterous behavior of his wife had driven him to alcoholism, and eventually madness. In the end, after he murdered his wife’s lover, Fang was arrested and put to death.
“I was amazed how this tale out of contemporary China was like the Greek tragedy, and it inspired me to do this production,” said Zhang, who filmed the building’s dismantling and its initial reconstruction in Brussels.
Although he declined to discuss the censors’ specific objections about the documentary, others who worked on the opera said it was the mention of the husband’s crime, and especially his punishment, that troubled the authorities.
Their solution was not very subtle. They demanded that the Chinese-language subtitles be excised, and they forced the projectionist to freeze the film before it could reveal the heart of the tale, leaving the audience confused about the connection between the documentary and the opera that followed.
“To be honest, as of 2pm on Sunday, we were not sure the show would go on,” said Zhang, who was careful to praise the Culture Ministry for allowing the performance.
Given her desire to foster intercultural exchange, Lady Davies, too, was not eager to criticize the last-minute bureaucratic deus ex machina. The donkey, after all, was allowed to stay in the production, even if officials asked that his lascivious behavior be toned down.
“I’m optimistic about the future of the arts in China, although it’s definitely challenging with a capital C,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe next time I ought to do a production of Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music.”
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