MCLC: Datong strikes a nerve in HK (1)

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Datong strikes a nerve in HK (1)
From: Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42 at cornell.edu>
Source: Financial Times (3/24/15)
Datong: The Chinese Utopia, Hong Kong City Hall Theatre — review
By Ken Smith
In Hong Kong, one of the few enclaves where educated Chinese can engage freely in cultural discourse, the opera stage has assumed a curious relevance. From Sun Yat-sen to the beloved author Xiao Hong, biographical figures from the past century have found themselves rendered on stage in all manners of lyrical introspection and epic grandeur.
That said, Kang Youwei (1858-1927), the political theorist at the heart of Datong: The Chinese Utopia at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, was hardly an obvious subject. Unlike Sun, who famously spearheaded China’s 1911 revolution, Kang’s attempted reforms from within have always appealed more to the head than the heart.
History, though, is nothing if not fluid. Despite its long-held views that Kang was neither radical nor progressive enough, China’s Communist party (now fearing revolution above all) sees virtue in reform. Add to that Kang’s views on gender equality and his anti-American boycott (in response to the US’s Chinese Exclusion Act) and you find something to empower (or offend) practically everyone.
For Evans Chan, the Hong Kong-raised, New York-based filmmaker whose controversial 2011 documentary Datong: The Great Society had already dramatised several scenes from Kang’s life, it wasn’t much of a stretch to refit his historical research for the opera stage. Much like the film, which traces Kang through the viewpoints of others, Chan’s libretto devotes considerable attention to his daughter, Kang Tongbi (her father’s confidant and eventual biographer).
Bass Apollo Wong and soprano Louise Kwong, as father and daughter respectively, ably bore the lion’s share of the evening, with solid performances by mezzo-soprano Carol Lin and tenor Chen Chen in multiple roles. (Chen’s portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt, re-enacting Kang’s meeting with the US president, was a humorous rejoinder to various Caucasians playing Chairman Mao in Nixon in China .)
Conductor Lio Kuokman, leading a 12-member ensemble in the pit, deftly delivered Chan Hing-yan’s score. But except for a few clever moments — Act 3 sets Tongbi’s deathbed in 1969 with a polytonal quote from “Let it Be” — the music matched little of the theatrical momentum in director Tang Shu-wing’s staging. Rather curiously for an opera, the music was an intriguing adornment rather than the driving force.
hk.artsfestival.org<http://www.hk.artsfestival.org/en/>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on March 30, 2015
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