✭✭✭✩✩ / ✭✭✭✭✩

by John Blow / Alice Ping Yee Ho, directed by Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière / Derek Boyes

Toronto Masque Theatre, Al Green Theatre, Toronto

May 10-12, 2013

“East Meets West in a Fascinating Double Bill”

Toronto Masque Theatre has just premiered an exciting double bill of two short works – one old and one brand new, one based on European mythology and one based on ancient Chinese legend.  Presented under the overarching title, The Lessons of Love, the first work is Venus and Adonis from 1683 by John Blow (1649-1708) to a libretto by Anne Kingsmill (1661-1720).  The second is the world premiere of a TMT commission, The Lesson of Da Ji by Alice Ping Yee Ho to a libretto by Marjorie Chan. 

Venus and Adonis was written as a masque for the court of Charles II and is often cited as the earliest surviving English opera.  In the slender plot Venus (Charlotte Corwin), goddess of love, has fallen in love with the mortal hunter Adonis (Benjamin Covey).  When encouraged by his mates to hunt, he wishes to stay with Venus, but she encourages him to go.  Soon she is filled with foreboding and Adonis returns fatally gored by a wild boar.  Intervals in the story are filled out with comic scenes featuring Venus’s son Cupid (Xin Wang) and songs and dances of shepherds and shepherdesses.  Cupid’s scolding, “Courtiers, there is no faith in you, You change as often as you can”, would have had a certain frisson at the first preference since Cupid was played by Charles’s ten-year-old illegitimate daughter Lady Mary Tudor and Venus by his former mistress Moll Davies.

The principals pleasures of Venus and Adonis are the glorious singing of Corwin as Venus, the sensitive playing of the six-member TMT Ensemble led by Larry Beckwith at the violin and the graceful, often witty dance interludes choreographed by the director Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière for herself and Marie-Laurence Primeau.  The principal weakness is the general unevenness of the singers.  Xin Wang is miscast as Cupid, who should both look and sound younger than his mother Venus.  Despite her effective acting, Wang with her fairly watery soprano could not achieve either.  Covey, who has a strong baritone with a rapid vibrato, makes a rather stolid Adonis.  The quartet of three shepherds and one shepherdess – Alexander Dobson, Derek Kwan, Timothy Wong and Vania Chan – beautifully sang their madrigal-like reflections.  Ultimately, though, it is Corwin with her rich soprano and nuanced acting, who makes the strongest impression.  One can easily see from the majesty and despair she finds in Venus, how that role would influence Henry Purcell’s Dido in his Dido and Aeneas of 1689.

In The Lesson of Da Ji, librettist Marjorie Chan gives us a revisionist version of the well-known figure of ancient Chinese history and legend.  In history Da Ji was the chief concubine of King Zhou, the last king of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 bc).  She was infamous for her love of debauchery and cruelty and King Zhou’s obsession with her is blamed for the fall of the Shang Dynasty.  In fiction she is one of the characters in the Fengshen Yanyi (The Investiture of the Gods) by Xu Zhonglin published c.1550 ad.  In his account, the evil fox spirit takes possession of Da Ji.  When her music tutor Bo Yi repulses her attentions, she is angered and tells King Zhou that her tried to rape her.  Zhou takes his revenge on Bo Yi on her behalf, which happens also to serve a political purpose since Zhou has been trying to weaken his enemy, the Western Duke Ji Chang, who is Bo Yi’s father.

In Chan’s version, the love between Bo Yi (Derek Kwan) and Da Ji (Marion Newman) is mutual and genuine.  The two do compare themselves to two foxes, but Da Ji is not evil and not possessed by the fox spirit.  Da Ji’s flaw is that she is so enamoured of Bo Yi that she does not learn to play the guqin (a type of zither) and Bo Yi fears the King (Alexander Dobson) will surmise what has been happening during Da Ji’s supposed music lessons.  Here, it is not Da Ji’s false account of rape that causes the King’s revenge but a song the King intercepts from Da Ji’s servant Ming (Xin Wang).  This sets up the final scene in which the King punishes both Da Ji and his enemy the Duke (Benjamin Covey), who with his wife the Duchess (Charlotte Corwin) are Bo Yi’s parents.  The ghoulish revenge forms a fascinating parallel with the story in Greek mythology of Atreus’s revenge against Thyestes because of Thyestes’ adultery with Atreus’s wife Aerope.

Composer Alice Ping Yee Ho has created a gorgeous score for the opera by combining the six Western period instruments of the TMT Ensemble with three instrumentalists playing traditional Chinese instruments – the guzheng, the gaohu and erhu, and the pipa and zhonggruan.  The percussionist’s kit is significantly augmented with a wide range of gongs, cymbals, drums, wooden blocks and rattles.   Ho not only beautifully combines the timbres of the Eastern and Western instruments, but amalgamates the influences of French Impressionism, Viennese expressionism and traditional Chinese song into unique, highly attractive medium.  Ho especially uses rapid strumming on the zhongruan, a kind of moon-shaped lute, to indicate moments of anxiety such as when Da Ji is forced to play the guqin in front of the King and his guests.   

Ho’s music for the singers is melodic and accessible.  Especially unusual is the inclusion of William Lau, a Chinese-Canadian nan dan actor of Peking opera (i.e., a man who play female roles).  Using the stylized falsetto declamation style of a virtuous qingyi role, Lau is one of two actors who plays the Moon, who visits Da Ji in a dream and warns her of pride in believing humans can outwit fate.  The only character to sing in Chinese, he is accompanied by Vania Chan, who translates Lau’s warnings into English in her vivacious coloratura.  

        

Mezzo-soprano Marion Newman has full, rounded voice and easily captures the many facets of Da Ji’s nature – flirtatiousness, anger, fear, shame, pride – that make her such a fascinating character.  Derek Kwan has a lovely, high, firm tenor ideal for the cautious, sincere Bo Yi, drawn to love Da Ji in spite of the danger.  Alexander Dobson uses his rich baritone to great effect as the sadistic King, who finds pleasure in the distress of others. 

Angela Thomas has designed costumes in contrasting palettes for the two works – white and earth tones for Venus and Adonis, red and black for Da Ji with the traditional blue robe associated with Lau’s qingyi role and white for Chan’s Moon.  Caroline Guilbault has created simple but attractive projections that serve as the backdrop for the operas.  She uses video to help us understand the humour of Cupid’s didactic lecture on love in Venus and Adonis and to translate the antique form of Mandarin used in Lau’s performance in Da Ji.

Alice Ping Yee Ho creates music of such expressivity and piquancy for the mixed ensemble in Da Ji, that it would be wonderful if she, Marjorie Chan and TMT could collaborate on another work based on Chinese legend.  As it is, this is an intriguing double bill that I hope TMT will revive sooner rather than later so that more people will have the chance to marvel at their achievement.

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Marion Newman and Derek Kwan in The Lesson of Da Ji.  ©2013 Tariq Kieran.

For tickets, visit http://www.torontomasquetheatre.com.