At age 72, Yue
Meiti still takes to the stage
to perform young male roles in
an art form she has studied
since she was a teenager. Zhang
Kun reports in Shanghai.
At
first glance Yue Meiti seems to
be an ordinary middle-aged woman. She
looks much younger than her 72 years,
and people who meet her in the
streets of Shanghai may simply address
her as "auntie Yue".
But
when she takes to the stage Yue
becomes ancient China's version of
Prince Charming: A young scholar in
love with a nun who is
exhilarated to discover she feels the
same way about him; or a poor
oil vendor using his life savings
to meet a courtesan he loves
and finally winning her
love.
Yue is China's
number one female performer of
xiaosheng in Kunqu Opera. Xiaosheng
refers to young male roles in
the traditional theatrical art. She
has won many awards over the
decades, including China's top prize
for traditional opera art, and has
toured extensively at home and
abroad.
On April 14, Gu Haohao,
director of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera
Troupe, told a gathering at the
Ruyizhai club of Shanghai Institute of
Language and Culture that Madame Yue
is a national treasure. Yue
illustrated, through singing and acting,
the styles and aesthetics of Kunqu
Opera.
Kunqu is the most
graceful folk opera in China, with
a history that stretches back 600
years. It was traditionally performed
by an all-male cast, and the
actors who played beautiful women were
so admired and pursued from the
late 1800s, that the opera was often
mired in scandal. After 1949, China's
new cultural administration demanded that
men perform male roles and female
roles be played by women, in
order to "eradicate the corrupt social
customs and change the twisted
aesthetics in the entertainment
scene".
Yue studied Kunqu in
the early 1950s. It was by accident
that the school's president and
maestro Kunqu artist Yu Zhenfei
(1902-93) discovered Yue was suited to
playing young male roles.
Yue
was 16, and at first she didn't
like the idea of playing male
roles. Maestro Yu praised her talent
and advantages and told inspiring
stories of successful women opera
singers. Finally he promised to "take
full responsibility" for her transfer
to male roles.
Yue's
voice is mellower than most male
singers', and deeper and broader than
most women's, making her naturally
suited to singing young men's
roles.
"Her acting is
characterized by elegance and a
scholarly touch, which makes her roles
more convincing and vivid," says Gu,
the director.
"I observe
closely and think hard about acting,"
Yue says of performing male roles.
Men have natural masculinity to their
advantage, but might not have the
fine craftsmanship she has acquired
through years of practice.
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