Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera (Book review)

Abstract

Few people, if any, brought up in the Western tradition have as detailed an experience and knowledge of the Beijing opera as an art form as Elizabeth Wichmann. She has the distinction of being the first American since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 actually to perform in public on the Chinese stage, and the specific performance she gave, Guifei zuijiu (The favorite concubine becomes intoxicated), is mentioned quite a few times in this book. She is extraordinarily well qualified to write about the aspects of performance of the Beijing opera. She lived, worked, and studied in China during the mid-1980s and learned from Shen Xiaomei, the youngest student of the great Mei Lanfang (1894-1961), himself probably the most famous performer China ever produced. It is obvious from its title that this book covers just one aspect of the Chinese performing arts. Amid the important political, economic, and social developments in the China ofthe reform period since 1978, it is essential not to forget the major role played by literature and the arts. In particular, the modernization of China has been accompanied by reform in the theater, but at the same time by a major revival of tradition. Wichmann's book has a great deal to say about both tradition and change in the Beijing opera, but, although she worked in the 1980s in China and consequently was among those to benefit by the opening of China in the modern period, her work deals much more with the tradition than with the present age.