CCTV idol

I am not a huge fan of reality TV, though when I was still living in the U.S. I used to watch Dancing with the Stars and The Apprentice. My viewing habit hasn’t changed much since moving to China, although I would watch reality shows from time to time, to catch a break from my otherwise mundane schedule. But I jumped at the chance when I was offered to sit in a live broadcast of a nation-wide singing competition produced by CCTV.

CCTV is not mainly known for its reality TV shows: the champ goes to Hunan Television, for its brazen copycat (but immensely popular) American Idol-like shows. But there is no doubt that CCTV’s 青歌赛 (Youth Singing Competition –my translation) is influential. Winners are often given spots to sing at one of those Spring Festival shows watched by every one and their mother during Chinese New Year –attaining the kind of prestige and glory that are hard to quantify. Equally importantly, these winners (and many contestants with a coattail of bulletin-board buzz long after the show) carry on by performing in public events, for regional television stations etc. Doors are open by virtue of “having made it” on CCTV.

The show is divided into various categories, including pop singing and ethnic music. There’s a category that is difficult to translate: 民族唱法, which I would liberally translate as anything that has something to do with Chinese culture (most contestants choose to belt out a nationalist song; many others sing songs that praise China’s nature, abundant resources, kind people etc. — you get the idea). I was invited to two live studio broadcasts over the past week, and I must say while there was nothing out of the ordinary, it was memorable, if only because I got to see the inside of CCTV’s headquarters in the west side of town before they move to the new OMA building in Chaoyang.

The format is not similar to American Idol –for one, there is no heart-ripping, reality-checking speeches by Simon Cowell. Contestants would come out and sing their song, and then would go through an interactive session whereby contestants are either asked to tell a story (from a selection of topics), answer a few culture-related questions, and/or do melodic dictation –all in front of a live television audience. For the singing, the contestants are judged by 10 judges, each of whom would give a maximum of 99 points. A maximum of one point would be given for a contestant’s performance during the interactive session. Needless to say, no serious contestant would spend his/her life trying to ace this interactive session, although it is this part that seemed to glue the television audience, if not for the heart-warming stories (a lot were about how contestants wished to thank their deceased mothers or fathers or teachers) or for the comic responses (especially in melodic dictation, where a seemingly good dictation would deteriorate into something between a jazzy improvisation and a melodically challenged fiasco) then certainly for the cultural commentator’s incisive social and cultural commentary. Most contestants are serious contenders (no pretenders or jokers), although my sampling points were skewed because I went at the final elimination rounds (the competition would begin at regional TV stations, who would then send their winners to Beijing for a final round of competition). Since the competition is only held once every two years, it is considered to be the Olympic of Chinese singing competition (if not for the follow-on lucrative commercial contracts, then certainly for the glory of winning a CCTV competition and the opportunity to be invited to sing at the Chinese New Year TV bash). A closer look at the contestants certainly reveals that while a majority of them were sent to the final round by regional television stations, many others were sent by government agencies (the “danwei”s), including the army, the navy, various music/art universities etc.

My conversation with a friend who has intimate knowledge about the show (and the necessary connection to sneak me in) revealed that many of these “danwei”s would send their representatives to these competitions mainly for bragging rights. She said that “danwei”s actually make a big deal out of a winner sent from their cohort. When I asked my friend why there was no representation from private enterprises, she explained that they just didn’t have to privilege of bypassing the “regionals” to go straight to the finals, as would be the case for those representatives from “danwei”s. While the arrangement may seem patrician and patronizing, she defended the practice by saying, to which I agree, that the competition within the “danwei”s to search for a winner is, by most standards, even more, not less, strenuous than the competition at a regional competition, simply because of the military-style training and the resources. Private companies simply don’t have the time and effort to train and nurture a final-ready contestant, and one may argue that “bypassing” the regionals is not by itself patronizing because the “bypassed” alternative is probably even more, not less, strenuous. And then there’s the dreaded cultural reality: face — a “danwei” simply can’t just send a mediocre contestant up for embarrassment on the national stage. Good enough is simply not good enough for these “danwei”s, and the superior quality of their representatives is the number one and only necessary testament that my friend’s explanation was adequate to me.

These idols aren’t necessarily commercially viable, especially when what they sing isn’t something that someone can hum to or follow through at a karaoke joint (some of these 民族歌 are scored to shock and awe with rapid firing of high notes). But these idols will have attained national fame by standing atop the CCTV stage and, by being there and performing well, will have made whom they represent proud. At the end of the day, anybody can sing, but only a few can sing on the CCTV stage and be given an opportunity to sing to hundreds of millions of people. Now, that’s bragging rights commercial success can’t buy.

Le roi d’Ys

Édouard Lalo is well known for his string compositions, for a good reason: he was an accomplished violin and viola player himself. His Spanish Symphony, a violin concerto, is considered to be an important rite of passage for many aspiring violinists.

His opera compositions, however, are less well known. Le Roi d’Ys, considered to be Lalos’ most well-scored and sophisticated opera, is rarely staged. (The Met, for example, staged Le Roi six times in its 120+ years history –and these six were performed in a single season: 1921-1922.) This rarity was the primary reason why I was excited to learn that Le Roi would be staged this week at the National Theatre in Beijing, in a production co-produced by the National Theatre and the Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse.

Last night I went to the second of four Le Roi performances this weekend. Honestly, I don’t have much exposure to Lalo’s work prior to last night, and I was somewhat surprised by the Wagnerian nature of the composition. By the second Act, I was convinced why Lalo’s work remains in the back bin of any company’s repertoire: one simply can’t market a Wagnerian feature under the banner of a French composer. The two concepts just don’t mix…selling Le Roi, as it seems to me, is like selling existential philosophy at a burlesque factory. I am not trying deliberately to make a direct and parallel analogy here: my point, however, is that no easy way exists to fuse the two perceptibly differing concepts into one coherent, marketable product.

But last night’s production was as close to achieving something monstrous as I could possibly imagine. Even so, the production was not devoid of misses: the singing, by most standards, was lackluster. The tenor singing the role of Mylio was simply not up for the challenge. His voice was weak and unable to project adequately to all corners of the hall (I sat in a perfectly located orchestra center seat but felt that his delivery was timid, particularly towards the end when Lalo obviously expected Mylio to be brazen and bold). Rozenn, a soprano role, delivered technically but was incapable of establishing any emotional connection with the audience (perhaps she was merely effectuating the role, which was supposed to be simple but oblivious to most of what went on?). It was due to the miscast of both Mylio and Rozenn that I found Margared, a mezzo-soprano role, to be sumptuously fulfilling, perhaps simply by comparison. The villainous role was hardly bel canto in nature (after all, Le Roi is, at least to me, Wagnerian), but the singer was able to deliver a top quality voice that not only danced powerfully with the orchestral score, but invited the audience (or just me?) to feel her villainous rage.

But Margared alone was not enough to save the day. What made Le Roi work, or rather, this Le Roi work was the production stage. The set includes a beautifully painted, two-story stage with plenty of ornamental details and fabulous engravings. The opera also calls for a dramatic flooding scene in the final scene. Common sense would dictate that no production would actually flood the stage with real water, but would only metaphorically do so through stage effects (e.g. blue lighting, and/or dancing ribbons) to falsify an imminent tidal surge. But no, the production designer actually flooded the stage, not merely with a few metaphoric buckets but with gallons upon gallons of fresh water gushing from the top of the two-story stage down a central stair piece and onto the stage floor! (The water was, as it seemed to me, then captured by slits across the stage.) It was as magnificent as real elephants in Aida or marching horses in Khovanshchina, except, of course, that this water design was so much more difficult to pull off not merely because of the logistic nightmare of recapturing the water but also of the #1 issue in any stage design: safety.

According to the production notes, the stage seems to be conceptualized and managed by folks at the National Theatre. If anything, this Le Roi set proves that Chinese production designers are world class, and that the Theatre’s mechanics can deliver such a technical marvel, so seemingly unfathomable anywhere else, that the production was saved from mediocrity.

Modern Sky Festival and its Crowd

Amid the effusion of praise that I have lavished on China’s rock scene, I must admit that the Modern Sky Festival fell well short of my expectations.

Granted, my observation was not truly representative, since I was to attend only one of three days of the festival (I reserved tomorrow for hiking and for the rest of the week, I would be in HK), which featured dozens of artists performing at different time slots over those days. Nevertheless, I found my patience running out as I went from stage to stage, only to find artists who severely lacked the kind of punch and energy which one would typically expect from a rock festival, and a lukewarm audience whose apathy seemed to feed right back to the subconsciousness of the artists.

To be sure, there were exceptions to the case. At the stage for new bands, an enthusiastic audience clamored for more after No Name completed their set with a Sum 41-like, whirlwind locomotion infused with well-known Chinese elements. Enthusiastic audience members would also climb over each other and wave their limbs in an absolutely gorgeous, blue-sky day in Haidian Park. At the electric/techno stage, a few ebullient souls showed off their acrobatic dance moves  neither caution nor compulsion. There was also the flag-waving, body-thumping, beer-splashing crowd in front of the main stage, a scene reminiscent of Woodstock. Those aside, however, I couldn’t help but recognize a wall of expressionless folks, who looked either too tired, too stoned, or just plain too indifferent to physically react to the music. Not even the head nod…not even the lap tap…are we all becoming the disengaged philosopher whose relationship with live music is strictly analytical? Most of the time I just felt that people were just standing there in front of the stage, as if waiting to board an imaginary subway train.

Perhaps it was just me, but while it seems that the organizers did a great job by putting slightly different music on different stages to cater to each and everyone at any given time, the heavy metal on one stage seemed to drown out, for example, Sandee Chen’s melancholic, twitter-like ballade on another. Was there not enough insulation mechanism to at least compartmentalize the sound a little better? Of course, nobody would be serious enough to demand concert hall acoustics at a rock festival, but when it got to the point where the sound from another stage became a distraction, the feeling of liveliness and spontaneity instantly became a nuisance.

Would I go back? Sure…only to prove myself wrong. The crowd was perhaps merely recovering of a full day of partying on National Day, but I am sure music fans, and a lot of them, could do better not merely by showing up physically but by being more engaged in circulating (and amplifying) energy to and from the artists –something which I find to be the unique hallmark of live rock music. But I would give the benefit of the doubt, until next time.

Jacky Cheung World Tour ‘07

It seems ironic that I would go to a canto-pop concert in Beijing, and even more ironic, as my mom would put it, that I would go to a canto-pop concert at all. It is true that my interest in canto-pop has been lukewarm over the years, and that my only real claim to (any) connection with canto-pop was a stint as a member of a drumming consortium that once backed up The Winners (are they really canto-pop?) and a gig as a percussionist at a Hacken Lee concert. Otherwise, you won’t see any canto-pop CDs on my rack or see me humming to a canto-pop track.

That said, I wouldn’t say I was not fascinated by canto-pop’s rise as a major force in Greater China’s music scene. Jacky Cheung’s music, for starters, transcends any geopolitical barrier by making the hit list at every metropolitan area where Chinese congregates: there used to be a saying that in some communities in and near Vancouver and Toronto, one would hear Jacky Cheung on radio more often than Madonna+Backstreet Boys+Bruce Springsteen+Westlife+(fill in with your favorite non-Asian artists) combined. Beijing folks can sing Jacky’s Cantonese songs even though they have little idea whether they are hitting the right 白话 pronunciation, while folks in Hong Kong can lip sync to any of Jacky’s Mandarin songs before Mandarin was even considered an indispensable linguistic asset in what was then an English-speaking British colony.

But Jacky today was not the Jacky who won the singing contest that made him famous 23 years ago. His voice is still brilliant by most standards. Yet, it also seems to show its age, as it no longer carries the level of high-octane punch that was the hallmark of his old voice. I also counted at least two occasions where some of his high notes cracked, only to be mercifully drowned out by an dutiful band behind him. As perhaps canto-pop’s most consistently successful superhero, he nevertheless represents a star fading into a more contemplative, reflective phase of his career. That said, the concert was supremely organized (other than transportation to and from Feng Tai Stadium, of which, alas, there was none), the stage well-designed, the acoustics quite adequate, and the dancing numbers quite well choreographed. Jacky is the kind of performer that requires neither exquisite dance arrangements nor scantily-clad models/dancers gyrating around him –both of which seem to be the norm today for any Asian male star trying to make it in the Asian music scene. Instead, it seems to me that Jacky naturally, and only relies on emotional appeal and a face of human ingenuity (whether feigned or real) to connect to his audience, and I must say he was very good at those last night.

Perhaps to no importance to most, during the concert I did yell out “got maid?” as an ironic vituperation of his off-stage antics as a sub-par employer, although I doubt anyone who heard that — he most certainly could not, given the level of noise in the stadium and the position of my nose-bleed seat — had any inkling of what I meant.

My first classical music concert in China

The China Philharmonic opened its 2007-2008 Season last night with a heavyweight program featuring the world premiere of a composition by Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang, and the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Ye’s new work, The Lofty Kunlun Mountains, is a monumental piece of music commissioned by and written for the China Philharmonic, and was completed barely a month ago. Continuing his ongoing series of scores featuring the customs and cultures of China’s various regions, Ye borrows from Qinghai province’s instrumental and vocal elements to carve out a substantial piece of work with three contrasting symphonic movements. Kunlun Mountains’ orchestral footprint is similar to that of Ye’s other work, Twilight in Tibet, in that Kunlun Mountains weaves through an intricate balance of rapturous Mahlerian moments and delicate pianissimo harmonics to illustrate the imposing and undulating landscapes of the region. The first movement, “The Lofty Kunlun Mountains”, is a testament to Ye’s frequent practice of east-meets-west ideals in which Holstian orchestral frameworks were gorgeously realized through the application of cascading pentatonic scales. The second movement, “The Ode to the Kunlun Mountains”, is an emotional interlude that reminds the audience of the tranquils of Howard Shore’s middle earth. Its baroque, careful string structures also provide perhaps the most poetic and original moment of the three movements. The third movement, “The Chinese March”, is the most symphonically bold, yet also stylistically least interesting, as if the piece tried to gallop to a Khrushchevian closure. In Poly Theatre’s foyer after the concert, I had a brief moment to congratulate Ye on finishing the composition, but I stopped short, for whatever lame reason including, out of deference, of complaining that Kunlun Mountains, while successful in evoking an impressive array of ethnic elements, lacked a fundamentally unique style that I often attribute to the composer’s other more satisfying compositions.

Rach 3 was performed by Kun-Woo Paik, a Korean-born pianist most famous for his interpretation of Liszt. Last night’s performance was average, although anyone who knows more than a thing or two about Rach 3 would testify that any pianist who can sprint through the extremely difficult, “finger-breaking” piece without major lapses deserves at least a few rounds of standing ovations. And Paik got his share and more, at least half a dozen of them. Paik’s performance wasn’t necessarily bad –in fact, his rendition of Rachmaninoff’s legato moments in the first movement was as lyrical as any I have ever heard –but, on the overall, Paik’s Rach 3 seems to lack a sense of controlled fragility that seems, at least to me, to be the hallmark of Rachmaninoff’s piece. The third movement was also slow –a tad slower than Ashkenazy’s typical, leisurely pace of 15 minutes and a lot slower than Argerich’s exuberant pace at just over 13 minutes (in the legendary RSO Berlin/Chailly recording). To be sure, nobody will ever accuse a pianist of dragging in a performance, although if Paik had admitted that his performance dragged last night, it would not necessarily have been his fault: there were times when it seems obvious that Paik was trying to race the orchestra to a tempo of his liking, only then to be suppressed by the baton of conductor Long Yu. It was not easy to conclude who dragged and who raced, but there were moments when I had a clear impression that there wasn’t enough communication between the concerto conductor and the concerto performer.

In any case, it was an incredible night not least because it was my first time to listen to classical music in Beijing, but also because I always fancied finding out what kind of crowd I would get at a classical music concert in mainland China. I was quite impressed – other than a slight mishap in which an audience sitting not far behind me felt the need to ruffle his/her plastic bag (whose act was then promptly verbally abused and denounced by other audience members nearby) – the crowd was very courteous, and did not clap, contrary to my earlier expectation, between concerto movements. I went to the concert with Carrie, a smart auditor who often lets her disengaged, emotion-less self spill over to her personal life. So it was only fitting that the highlight of my evening was to see her face light up, and her emotions flow, as she raved about Ye’s sweetness and Rachmaninoff’s genius.

Super Band

Super Band is an American Idol-like competition for rock bands in China. It is jointly produced by media outlets in Guangzhou and Hong Kong to promote original compositions, to discover new talent, and to nurture a crop of Chinese musicians that have the potential to redefine the country’s rock scene in the coming years.

Zhang Peirong, a friend here in Beijing, told me about Super Band while we downed a few Yanjings in Houhai a few weeks ago. Peirong, by all standards, is quite a character. By day, he labors as a film editor in the city. By night, he is a rocker who hounds the Houhai scene. While he is extremely fluent in and deferential to the history and traditions of rock, he is adamant that China as a nation be proactive in developing its own rock sound. He also informed me of a Super Band regional, and implored me to check it out if I ever want to seriously understand China’s pop music and culture.

I have not been extensively exposed to rock and its history, but decided to give it a try anyways, not least because he was dead right about my severe lack of knowledge in China’s pop music but also because I was very interested in the competition format that has swept through China in the past few years.

And boy, what an experience: impeccable on-stage coordination, exquisite fretboard fingering, assertive vocals…those are some of the things that impressed me most. After nearly four hours of music, I came away feeling a little full and a little empty. Full, in a sense that the experience was wholesome, educating, and different from anything I have ever seen. Empty, in a sense that, despite all the classical training that I was fortunate to get when I was young, I have been cloaked away (in some ways by my own doing) from this other world of music in which passion and creativity flow with the freedom of the mind. It is unfortunate that I didn’t discover this world until now, but it is also fortunate that I have, finally, discovered it. Here are some of the highlights:

Band 1: excellent contrast between two entries; male vocalist was superb in creating a soulful, interactive experience with the audience

Band 8: young but very mature, a careful balancing act amongst the players; it first appeared a little thin and weak but soon emerged as this emotional train that charged all the way to the finale

Band 9: pretty sound, but drummer seemed disjointed from the rest of the group

Band 11: well rehearsed with precise control of instrumental and melodic flow; I love its charismatic and pentatonic-heavy sound.

Band 12: a blend of German punk and novel vocal; the ending was crisp and clean

I wished I had written down the bands’ names. Perhaps I’ll one day dig them up from Super Band’s website.