Taiwan Today

In June 2012, Tang Mei-yun (唐美雲) was selected as one of the winners of that year’s National Award for Arts, the most prestigious honor for artistic achievement in Taiwan, for her dedication to performing and promoting the locally developed genre of Taiwanese opera at home and abroad. According to comments by the selection committee of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, the organization behind the National Award for Arts, “Tang has gone from performing on outdoor stages in local communities to plying her trade in modern theaters and, after honing her ability in different forms and styles of opera, ... emerged as a prolific, mature performer.”

In addition to Tang’s rare talent and the innovations she and her troupe have introduced to Taiwanese opera, the selection committee recognized her for the numerous roles she has played in other genres, which include modern theatrical works, movies and television dramas. She was shortlisted for a Golden Horse Award for film in 1997 and received the Golden Bell Award for best actress in a television drama series in 2001. The two awards are Taiwan’s top honors in their respective categories. Tang also received the best actor award at the annual national drama competition organized by the now defunct Taiwan Provincial Government in 1991 and 1992, a title that had never previously gone to the same person in two consecutive years. Tang’s career transcends awards, however, as her work in the tradition of Taiwanese opera has helped the venerable art form remain relevant in modern Taiwan.

Taiwanese opera, or kua á hì as it is known in Holo, or Taiwanese, emerged in the Yilan region of the country’s northeast in the 19th century. The genre’s combination of Holo singing and acting soon made it a staple of local entertainment and folk religious festivities. As kua á hì continued to gain popularity, performances began to take place on proper outdoor stages rather than at ground level, as was initially the case. During the era of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), kua á hì troupes began moving from open-air stages to indoor playhouses, a reflection of the increasingly urban nature of Taiwanese society.

Emerging Genre

According to Shih Ru-fang (施如芳), a playwright and art critic who composed a brief biography of Tang for the National Award for Arts selection committee, Tang’s father Jiang Wu-tong (蔣武童) became a professional kua á hì performer in the late 1920s. At that time, the genre was emerging as a major entertainment option in its own right, as more performances were taking place in commercial theaters for local audiences, which put kua á hì in direct competition with imported forms of drama such as Beijing opera from mainland China. “Back then, Taiwanese opera was increasingly performed as a full-length dramatic piece,” Shih says. “At commercial theaters in Taiwan, it was capable of rivaling Beijing opera in terms of box office success.”

In the mid-20th century, kua á hì performers were frequently invited to participate in radio dramatizations, a major entertainment medium before the advent of television in Taiwan. After the first television station went live in 1962, kua á hì continued to be popular on the small screen in local households.

Tang was born in 1965 and seemed destined to find her calling in kua á hì, as her mother was also a performer and troupe operator. In 1980, Tang launched her career as a professional performer in various television and stage productions. The following year, she was part of a group of performers selected from several of Taiwan’s kua á hì troupes for a tour of Southeast Asian countries. During the tour, she remembers being quite impressed by the diversity of set designs and the group members’ acting ability, which brought enthusiastic applause from audiences.

Tang’s father was among those who contributed to shifting kua á hì from a type of casual, improvised performance delivered on outdoor stages to a refined, elaborate art form presented indoors. Tang learned many of the intricacies of kua á hì from her father, as well as received training from masters in gymnastics and music.

In 1991, Tang joined the Ho Lo Taiwanese Opera Troupe and carried on her father’s efforts when the troupe staged The Wrong Verdict, its debut work, indoors at the stately National Theater in Taipei. Over the following six years, Tang continued playing leading roles in Ho Lo’s annual productions while also appearing in movies and plays. Tang says the troupe remains one of the biggest influences on her career. “I really appreciate the years of experience I gained at Ho Lo,” she says.

Ho Lo was established by Liu Zhong-yuan (劉鐘元) in 1985 as a way to bring about a renaissance in indoor live kua á hì performances, which had given way to televised versions and other forms of entertainment like movies over the years. “Liu and his troupe have played a crucial part in bringing kua á hì back to indoor stages,” Tang says.

Liu had worked at a radio station that was one of the first to put kua á hì on the air in the 1950s, and by the 1970s he had become a leading figure in the production of televised kua á hì shows. His efforts to give the old art form a new lease on life in modern Taiwan soon extended to developing local motifs and story lines for the shows. Surprisingly, such local elements had been relatively rare in traditional kua á hì up to that point. Instead of dramatizing stories about the lives and history of people in Taiwan, the genre had often presented themes from classical Chinese novels and folklore. “I want Taiwanese people to learn about their own history in their own dramatic tradition,” Liu says.

In 1998, Tang established the eponymous Tang Mei-yun Taiwanese Opera Company, which is now based in New Taipei City. “I thought kua á hì had many possibilities and a lot of room for development,” she says of her desire to start her own troupe. “I wanted to create my own style and produce different works [with greater use of modern theatrical elements].” Her new company’s opening work, The Phantom of the Cabaret, premiered in 1999 and was an adaptation of the internationally acclaimed musical The Phantom of the Opera. In 2006, Tang’s troupe produced Who Is My Bride?, a revision of The Phantom of the Cabaret. Who Is My Bride? was written by Shih and garnered the award for best traditional drama at the 2007 Golden Bell Award. “The phantom in our later work seemed to win more sympathy from audiences than his Western counterpart,” Tang says. “I think that’s due to the additional time the piece devoted to showing how the phantom’s character took shape.”

Meanwhile, Liu’s work with Ho Lo kept evolving, and the troupe’s 2000 production of Taiwan, Our Mother became known for establishing a dramatic tradition that relates Taiwan’s history and stories. The work is based on a novel by Lee Chiao (李喬), winner of the 2006 National Award for Arts for literary achievement. Taiwan, Our Mother depicts the hard life of early immigrants in Taiwan and touches on the founding of the Formosan Republic, which declared independence in May 1895 shortly after the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) agreed to cede Taiwan to Japan. The republic lasted just a few months, however, as the scattered Formosan resistance eventually proved little match for Japanese troops.

In June 2008, Tang’s performance in The Seal of 1895 at the National Theater drew high critical acclaim. Like Taiwan, Our Mother, The Seal of 1895 is set during the rise and fall of the Formosan Republic, but Tang’s troupe presented the subject in a more modern, unconventional style. The Seal of 1895 is based on a novel of the same name written by Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), a former legislator and president of the Examination Yuan, and was revised for opera by Shih. Tang directed the opera as well as performed the role of the protagonist, a Taiwanese soldier defending the republic.

The Seal of 1895 was unusual in two aspects. First, the opera presents a local event from Taiwan’s history, which has not been so common for kua á hì. Second, the work “combines a traditional art form with modern theatrical components,” Tang says, referring to the incorporation of Western string music and contemporary plots, among other things. “We developed this style to carry on and extend the appeal of the tradition to younger generations and beyond national boundaries. Our works have the traditional basic tune forms and rules, but they can also be presented like a regular operatic piece for local and foreign audiences.”

Tang has worked with another influential figure in her career, Liao Chiung-chih (廖瓊枝), who was 63 when she became the first kua á hì artist to win the National Award for Arts in 1998. Widely hailed as Taiwan’s No. 1 “tragic female diva,” Liao developed that mournful role to previously unseen artistic heights by combining the emotional intensity of crying with singing. In 2009, Tang helped produce an opera named The Virtuous Mother of General Tao Kan and acted with Liao in that work, which was to be the latter’s last major performance before retirement. “It’s impressive that she, at close to 80 years old, still keeps busy with kua á hì,” Tang says. “She’s truly a representative figure in the genre’s development due to her ability as a performer and her efforts in helping cultivate young talent.”

Both Liao and Tang have devoted themselves to preserving the kua á hì tradition in the mainstream education system by teaching in the Department of Taiwanese Folk Opera at National Taiwan College of Performing Arts in Taipei. As an extension of that department’s mission, Tang and Liao hope to see the school establish its own kua á hì troupe, which would provide a stable, nurturing environment for budding performers to continue their artistic development before choosing to pursue a career in professional troupes like Tang’s. “A school troupe would be like a cradle,” Tang says. “By offering financial sponsorship of the troupe, the education, private and public sectors could cooperate more effectively for the long-term continuation of a Taiwanese performing art.”

Similar sponsorship of kua á hì troupes has been taking place for some time in Fujian province, southeastern mainland China. Many inhabitants of the Minnan region in the province’s south began immigrating to Taiwan in the 17th century. In Taiwan, their dialect is called Holo, while in mainland China it is known as Minnanese, but regardless of the name, the language is mutually intelligible to a great extent. In 2010, Tang’s company and the Xiamen Gezai Opera Troupe, which operates under the auspices of the municipal government of Xiamen, a major Fujian city, jointly produced an opera named Unfading Love, a piece about the genre itself. Tang played the male protagonist, who lives in Taiwan and endures separation from his fiancée, another kua á hì performer in Xiamen, for more than three decades until transportation links across the Taiwan Strait are re-established in the late 1980s.

Although there had been previous cross-strait kua á hì exchanges such as forums and mutual visits among troupe members, Unfading Love marked the first extensive collaborative performance between Taiwanese and Minnanese opera groups. According to comments by the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Unfading Love successfully juxtaposed the quite different kua á hì singing styles found in Taiwan and Fujian. “In contrast to their more ornamental bel canto style, we sing more plainly using our original voice,” Tang says of one difference between the two styles. To date, Unfading Love has been staged in Taipei and Beijing.

Tang has also been praised for her performance in modern theatrical works such as 1433: The Grand Voyage by Robert Wilson, an avant-garde stage director and playwright from the United States. Wilson received a commission for that work from the National Theater and employed interpreters to produce the play in Taiwanese in Taipei in 2010. In 1433: The Grand Voyage, Tang excelled at using Taiwanese as a theatrical language to narrate the life of Zheng He (鄭和, 1371–1433), a Chinese explorer and fleet admiral known for commanding voyages from Southeast Asia to the east coast of Africa. “Her Taiwanese singing and speaking were clear and poised, while her longer and shorter chanting were very rhythmic and dramatic,” Shih says of Tang’s performance in 1433: The Grand Voyage.

Beautiful Language

For Tang, any modern development of kua á hì must take pains to remain true to its essential elements. “The language is the root of it,” she says, “because Taiwanese is a beautiful language that can express subtle meanings and classical grace.” In the past, local languages were suppressed by various regimes in Taiwan in order to promote a “national language.” “My mother was forced to sing kua á hì in Japanese,” Tang recalls. “In my case it was Mandarin.” Fortunately, language pluralism has been a mainstream social trend in Taiwan for several decades, and Tang is glad to help more Taiwanese people learn about their own culture and language in kua á hì shows.

In a time of renewed interest in local cultures, Tang has emerged as one of Taiwan’s most admired kua á hì performers. In the future, she says she will continue working to produce more and better pieces to prove that Taiwanese opera is not only a precious part of folk culture, but also a genuine art form.

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw