The journey of Sichuan Opera to global acclaim

"I would rather be a broken piece of jade than an intact clay tile." With those words, Diao Chan, a beautiful young courtesan and the central character of "Feng Yi Ting," a Chinese opera by the Chinese composer Guo Wenjing and Sichuan Opera soprano Shen Tiemei, was presented at its New York premiere at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in 2012.

"When it was over, I just wanted more," a review in The New York Times read, commenting on Shen's performance.

It was the eighth year Shen Tiemei had taken Sichuan Opera to international stages. Shen, who has an increasing number of fans abroad, told CGTN that culture knows no language barriers, as the standards of art are universal.

"Chinese opera fully embodies Chinese wisdom," she said, before advocating for cultural exchange and mutual understanding among different civilizations.

Art knows no borders

Western audiences have a high level of appreciation for art and can understand works from different cultures, making Chinese traditional performances very popular, Shen, who is also the vice-president of the China Theater Association and director of the Chongqing Sichuan Opera Theater, said. 

"They have never heard singing like this before, so they find it very intriguing.”

"Audiences assume that we make innovative adjustments specifically to cater to European tastes, but in reality, we don't and it is a highly original piece," she said. "This also demonstrates that art knows no borders."

Widely known as China's La Traviata, Li Yaxian is adapted from a Ming-dynasty folktale about the tragic romance between courtesan Li Yaxian and scholar Zheng Yuanhe.

Even in China, it has long been regarded as a "vintage" piece primarily appreciated by dedicated theater enthusiasts. During tours in Hungary and Romania, Attila Veres, the director of the Hungarian National Theatre, suggested that subtitles not be provided for the Sichuan Opera performances. 

"Please trust our audience; they will definitely understand it," he said.

Unexpectedly, not only did the European audience "understand it," they also discovered that they particularly enjoyed Chinese art.

Inner Landscape, a documentary directed by Dutch film director Frank Scheffer, is yet another example. Revolving around Si Fan, another Sichuan Opera piece by Guo and Shen, the film focuses on how traditional culture survives in contemporary society and how ethnic cultures confront the impact of Western mainstream culture in today's era of globalization.

Filming Chinese-themed documentaries from the perspective of a Western person is inherently challenging. How this "otherness" integrates with and portrays Chinese culture is the greatest challenge for such a documentary. Yet for Chinese artists, such involvement can inspire even more creativity.

Scheffer excels in capturing "extraordinarily captivating" details and magnifying them. For example, he may suggest that Shen exaggerate a certain movement or enhance these "captivating" details with the support of set design and camera movements.

This is the essence of Chinese culture going global: ensuring authenticity rather than altering the art to cater to an audience's potential lack of understanding, which risks losing its original essence, Shen said.

Embracing mutual respect

"I greatly appreciate Sichuan Opera, and fearing even the slightest damage to traditional culture, I cherish it as if holding it in the palm of my hand," Guo once said to Shen during a rehearsal.

As one of the few Chinese composers who have made their way to the West, where they have quickly become important voices in new music, Guo seeks to create artworks in China and his inspiration derives largely from the nourishment of Chinese culture.

"If Western technical standards dissect and piece together Chinese traditional culture, then the soul of Chinese culture will disappear. To preserve the essence of these Chinese traditional materials, it is essential to maintain integrity as much as possible," he once said in an interview.

Over their three collaborations, Guo and Shen have sought to break down cultural barriers. The result is compositions for orchestra and voice that absorb traditional Chinese music – the emphasis on percussion, the falsetto voices of Chinese opera, the rhythmic work songs of laborers – to create resonant, highly original music that transcends geographic boundaries and rigid classifications.

In Feng Yi Ting's score, Guo fused Chinese and Western classical styles. The distinctive sounds of four Chinese instruments – pipa (a lute), dizi (a flute), erhu (a fiddle) and sheng (a mouth organ) – blend with those of a Western chamber group.

Everyone in the team respects each other's cultures, so the cross-border collaboration feels more like an experimental attempt, preserving elements from each other's cultures, Shen said. 

For Guo, traditional Chinese music serves not only as a source of inspiration but also as a fitting medium for operatic interpretation, as he believes that "music and storytelling are deeply intertwined in Chinese culture."

"In Chinese culture, so many stories were sung by storytellers," he said.

'I gained confidence after going aboard'

In 2004, Shen brought "Feng Yi Ting" to the Royal Concert Hall in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was her first appearance in Europe, and she experimented with blending the traditional pinched, nasal style of Chinese opera with Western symphonic music.

"I was quite nervous at that time. The theater structures in Europe are completely different from those in China, where both the strengths and weaknesses of the voice on stage are magnified. It was my first time singing without a microphone, my first time collaborating with an orchestra, so I felt like I was walking on thin ice on stage," she recalled.

After the performance, amazed by the charm of Sichuan Opera, some audience members even rushed backstage, hoping to learn the vocal techniques of singing in the Sichuan Opera style. Since then, invitations for commercial and art festival appearances of Sichuan Opera have poured in from overseas, with shows staged in over 10 countries and regions including the Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary, the United States and Canada.

In 2012, with investment from the Lincoln Center in the U.S., Shen and her team rehearsed a new version of "Feng Yi Ting." Eight years later, she brought the authentic Sichuan Opera to the Western stage, showcasing the pure essence and transmitting the wonderful voice of China through the medium. In the same year, "the Chalk Circle" was showcased at the International Arts Festival in Wiesbaden, Germany, drawing full houses for multiple performances.

Over a decade, with each performance abroad, Shen gains more confidence.

"As far as I know, the international community hopes to see contemporary China, and foreign audiences are already familiar with symbols of Chinese traditional culture, so modern works should reflect contemporary China more," she said.

"Only what is rooted in our culture can truly resonate globally. Preserving traditional art without distortion or blind compliance – that's cultural confidence."