Musical America Blogs

by Cathy Barbash

Just received word that Julia Colman and Ludovic Bois have shuttered their 13-year old Chinese Contemporary galleries in Beijing, London and New York. They could not get the right stock anymore, because “The Chinese were finally taking over their market with museum curators, galleries and strong influence in the best art fairs.” Per Chinese contemporary art maven Phil Tinari, they are being “cut out by Chinese galleries who have access to the better artists, and these Chinese galleries have become the ones to sell works to foreigners. . . . There is less and less of a position to be held by Western galleries with little real authority to wield in the actual Chinese sphere.”

In the music world, international agents still control the cultivation and management of Chinese classical music stars. The usual pattern sees the young Chinese making their way to the premiere educational institutions in the U.S. or Europe, then being snapped up by the big dogs of the management world. Some say this won’t change until there is a strong domestic Chinese market for classical music. My guess is that it has to do with the amount of money to be made. I suspect that even Lang Lang in his best year would not make as much for his agent as Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun or Zeng Fanzhi would make for theirs. When the money to be made seems worth the effort, we’ll see the rise of Chinese management companies.

by Janice L. Mayer

The Makropulos Case conjures up tales of phenomenal designer shoes as well as miraculous longevity in its heroine. In my last blog, Cheryl Barker spoke of stunning heels that helped her achieve a stately presence on stage. Stephanie Sundine, soprano turned in-demand opera stage director, recalls a more down-to-earth moment in this astounding opera by Janáček. “When I sang Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case at Canadian Opera, I had several quick changes during the run of the show. In one of them, I had to change from gold slippers to black shoes. During one of the performances, the quick change went a little too fast, and I unknowingly ended up with one gold slipper and one black shoe. As soon as I came back onstage, I was blocked to throw myself down on a chaise and put my feet up, with great flair, as only Emilia Marty can do! As I did that, I looked at my feet and realized what had happened. As soon as possible, I put my feet back on the floor and did everything I could to keep them covered with my long black dress. Apparently, I wasn’t entirely successful, because the costumer Suzanne Mess (of whom I had heard for years, but never met) came to my dressing room after the show to playfully scold me for wearing mismatched shoes! That would have to happen on the night an important costumer was in the audience.”

Stephanie’s was a harmless mishap, but this week in the news—both the national news and cultural reporting—pictured leading ladies in a cast. Front page coverage in The New York Times explained that the walking cast on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s ankle was the result of a tumble while sprinting through New York’s Laguardia Airport earlier this summer. Ironically the judge, who is engaged in Senate confirmation hearings as the first female Latino nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, is being challenged by the Republican member of the Judiciary Committee as being too empathetic. Watching her hobble into the hearing room and taking the ‘hot seat’ surely brings out my sympathy! Then the Royal Opera’s Il barbieri of Siviglia which featured a notable ensemble was spotlighted. Joyce DiDonato, their effervescent Rosina, bubbled-over and ended up in a plaster cast caused by a spill on stage during Act 1. Ever the trouper, she completed the opera on crutches. The popular mezzo-soprano is expected to finish the ‘run’ of performances in a cast and on crutches, but the shows will go on!  

Marjorie Mussman, former soloist with the José Limón and Joffrey Dance Companies, said that she empathizes with singers dealing with raked and uneven surfaces.  Marjorie explained that “ballet dancers have to deal with a rake even on flat surfaces because it’s built into their toe shoes; the heel is already a little lower than the balls of the feet in pointe shoes.” She recalled her most challenging moment was on a State Department tour of Central and South America with the highly regarded First Chamber Dance Company of New York.  She had a solo in Sir Anton Dolin’s work Pas de Quartre “which featured a sequence of jumps traveling upstage.  The movement was challenging in and of itself, and then to perform it in Mexico City where the altitude is over a mile-high was extremely tiring!”

And then there is the adjustment of footwear—or lack thereof—from her time with the Limòn company which customarily dances barefoot to the Joffrey which dances in pointe shoes. Toe shoes lift your arch and I had to get used that again. Also my feet shrank in size and my shoes were actually falling down be cause I had gone down a half size. To keep them in place I started using good old Elmer’s© glue to affix my shoes to my heels during performances!” Today Marjorie teaches the professional advanced class at choreographer Mark Morris’s Dance Center in Brooklyn completing a cycle which began in a Seattle workshop when she taught a 13-year old Mark Morris. “Mark has always been bright and interesting—and fun!  People have always gravitated to him, like a pied piper. And he knows music like crazy! He has created a wonderful atmosphere at his dance center; it’s spotless, the floors are all sprung, and we all feel so supported without suffering interference in how we teach from the administration—I can really teach how I teach. They’ve been great to me.” It sounds like the Mark Morris Dance Group has it all in-balance, in Brooklyn!

Speaking of on point, dancer, choreographer and stage director Nicola Bowie shared her experience as beginning dancer with me. “I wanted to be a Classical Ballet Dancer from the age of four,” she said. And for those of us who are privileged to know Nicky as a very gregarious, outgoing adult transplant from the U.K., it may be hard to believe why she started lessons. “I began ballet classes at this early age as my mother felt that I suffered badly from shyness and needed more contact with children of my own age. From the first class I attended I was totally hooked, possessed, obsessed and it was absolutely clear that the world of dance was to be my destiny.  I took as many classes as my mother could drive me to and afford to pay for, passed all the relevant exams with honors and at the age of eleven, attended The Legat School of Russian Ballet (a vocational boarding school where academic studies took somewhat of a backseat and you danced from morning until night…bliss). At the age of sixteen I went on to The Royal Ballet Upper School in London. The premises were shared with the Royal Ballet Company.  We saw Rudolf Nureyev, Sir Anthony Dowell, Dame Antoinette Sibley and Dame Margot Fonteyn in the canteen on a daily basis (not that anyone was consuming anything other than black coffee, cottage cheese and, of course, the obligatory cigarette).”

And as I’m beginning to believe, every ballerina remembers her first toe shoes and has her own way of customizing them. “Being ahead of the game in terms of my age and stage, I received my first pair of pointe shoes at nine. They were a beautiful pink satin with matching ribbons which my mother painstakingly sewed on. She also darned the toe of the block in order to make them last longer.  I have to confess that they never felt completely comfortable to me. (Some of my colleagues later said that it was like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers, alas, not for me I am afraid.)  Part of the problem was if you naturally developed hard skin on your feet, you were much better protected.  Unfortunately, I was not blessed in that regard. In those days there was a recommend insert of “animal wool” into the toe cap. (One was never sure which animal it came from, and at that time I was so obsessed with putting the shoes on and getting on with the business of dancing, I didn’t care.) The animal wool was supposed to relieve some of the pressure but sometimes it would get hard and lumpy and become counter-productive.  With such soft skin I was at high risk of blisters and corn plasters were a frequent purchase from the pharmacy.  We were advised to dab our toes with surgical alcohol every night in order to encourage the toughening of the skin but I don’t honestly think that it ever did much for me.

In 1974 my dream came true and I was accepted into the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) a full time classical ballet company presenting the classics such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Coppelia, Cinderella, and  Romeo and Juliet. We would do three major seasons in London and toured both regionally and internationally for the rest of the year.  As far as I can remember, I had once week’s rehearsal in London prior to going out on my first tour.  In that week I had to learn the corps de ballet roles in Cinderella, Swan Lake and Les Sylphides! This was utterly terrifying and meant many, many hours ‘en pointe’… I somehow kept going and had to soak my feet in Epsom salts each night when I got home. I can still remember the joy at the end of the first week when I received my first pay check of 19 pounds 50 pence (about $30US!).  I couldn’t actually believe that I was earning money for something that I loved so much and had been doing for so long.”

Then she headed out on the road and the story takes a turn. “Our first tour date was in Eastbourne, a seaside town on the Sussex coast about 80 miles from London. Unfortunately, I managed to contract the worst cold that I can remember the weekend before we were due to leave. I took everything that I could possibly buy from the pharmacy but it was proceding down to my chest with alarming speed… not a great condition to be in when anticipating extensive cardio activity.  Swan Lake has the most dancing within the classical ballet repertoire for a corps de ballet member.  There are usually 32 swans and you are onstage throughout Acts II and IV (“the white acts”) with some appearances playing other characters in Acts I and III. There were eight performances scheduled for the first week with matinee and evening performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There was considerably more concentrated dancing than I had experienced before, and as you can imagine there was terrific pressure to ‘achieve,’ and to impress the Artistic Director, Dame Beryl Grey.  By the time I hit the evening performance on Wednesday my cold was so bad that I was having to inhale steam in the dressing room between acts and stick Kleenex© up my nose in order not to ‘drip’ on the floor during the long stands (not a pretty sight)!” One can only imagine that the rest of the flock were trying to keep their distance and health, an ironic twist since her mother started her in dance to make friends as you recall!

At least her bronchitis distracted her from her feet, she said as she continued her memorable shoe story. “Whilst all this was going on I was trying not to think about my poor feet which were in total shock. Suffice to say that when I came off stage that night wheezing like a warthog, pulling the Kleenex © from my nose, I looked down at my feet to see that a great amount of blood from my toes had seeped through my pointe shoes and thus gave a whole new meaning to ‘The Red Shoes’!  I can’t honestly remember how I managed to get through that first week performing as a professional ballet dancer but I guess it happened with a lot of prayer and possibly just a few misgivings as to whether I had ultimately made the best career choice!” Well we’re glad that she made the choice because she has enriched productions with her movement knowledge from coast-to-coast in America—literally from Glimmerglass Opera to Los Angeles Opera—and has encouraged countless emerging performers along the way.

By Andy Hertz

Whatever happened to the overture? For years, musicals opened with the lush sounds of a 30+ piece orchestra that entertained the audience for a few minutes before the show officially started. Today, fewer and fewer shows use overtures, and even fewer (if any) contain entr’actes. Has contemporary musical theater decided that overtures have become passe? Or are there other things that are more important than the aural opening of a show that contains no action onstage, when every minute costs money?

Perhaps authors and producers have determined that the preview of musical themes in the overture is not worth revealing. Perhaps orchestra size which has dwindled tremendously (but increased in the number of electronic and synthesized sounds), would make an overture unappealing. Perhaps there is not enough time to remind people to shut off their cell phones AND play an overture. Perhaps the cell phone announcement is today’s overture.

I have always loved the overture, often more than the songs in a show. When I went to see the Patti Lupone revival of Gypsy last year, and the overture began, played by a large orchestra and fully visible on the stage, I got chills. Not only was it a relief to hear the show the way the author originally intended it, but the music got me excited to see the rest of the show. The show was wonderful, but if it weren’t, I would have at least been enjoyed it for quite some time after hearing such a rousing piece of music.

by Cathy Barbash

Understanding that while there is no more “iron rice bowl” for performers in government-run ensembles there is now relative creative freedom, the more ambitious and savvy students in China’s major performing arts schools are beginning to take their futures into their own hands.

Beijing Dance Academy student Han Xu and a team of classmates organized a day-long forum last month on engagement in the performing arts, with a focus on musicals and hip-hop. However, she had the acumen to hold it at Beijing University, in order to reach out into the mainstream university community and benefit from identification with the nation’s leading institution of higher learning. She convinced her own department to pay all expenses, and to allow her to invite both foreign and Chinese speakers.

Tony Stimac, director of Beijing’s new private Reignwood Theater, spoke about Broadway musicals, Chen Jixin, CEO of the Oriental Broadway International Theater Co. and sometime collaborator with the Nederlander’s China enterprise, lectured on Chinese Musicals.

Xiao Chuan and the Audience

Xiao Chuan, one of China’s foremost hip-hop artists, gave a lecture demonstration on hip-hop’s history and practice, including some audience participation (see picture). Han Xu herself discussed why she had created arts leagues at Beijing’s universities, and exhorted the students to make their own musicals.

After the talking heads, excerpts from her team’s current musical were performed and critiqued by the participants, and students from the various university art leagues gave showcase performances, including rock bands, dance, and even cross-talk (a very traditional Chinese 2-person humorous dialogue-think Abbot and Costello “Who’s On First”). After this first success, Han Xu and colleagues hope to create an alliance of arts leagues at Beijing’s universities in order to further outreach efforts, cultivate leadership in the arts and begin creative and production activities.

My note to ISPA, Arts Presenters, and the Major University Presenters consortium: let’s engage in some cultural diplomacy and reach out to this nascent independent initiative.

A quick post—a reminder to those friends and colleagues who troll the internet for political and cultural news from China, that in addition to fascinating insights, one can also pick up nasty viruses not susceptible to our normal protective software. A few nights ago I was the victim—hence my delay in posting while my computer is being cleaned by experts much more skillful than I.
Cathy

Janice L. Mayer

“Ooh my feet, my poor, poor feet” is Cleo’s Act I song in Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella which I saw six times (yup count ‘em  6 run-thrus!) on my recent trip to Indiana University – more on that adventure in a sequel. In last week’s blog, I interviewed a singer who has performed the bawdy waitress Cleo many times.

Joyce Castle discussed how costuming impacts on the creation of her colorful characters. She said that “shoes make a difference in how you stand and walk. I need to be comfortable, but after that, I know that if I wear heels it will help me walk in a more stately manner and if I have clunky, oxford-looking shoes I will walk with a more measured gait.” When asked about her most memorable shoes, she immediately named the “thigh-high boots I had for my Met debut as Waltraute! Wow – running up that hill in those boots was really something!”

I decided to broaden my survey and ask some other internationally acclaimed singing-actresses how footwear impacts their onstage portrayals

British dramatic soprano Elizabeth Byrne remembers that she had “a wonderful drama and movement teacher at college who used to say a character was built from the feet up. Boy was she ever right! It is very important to wear a really comfortable pair of shoes on stage especially for especially long roles and to be insistent on that, even if the designer has to come up with something slightly different from their original intention.”

 She shared that “I encountered my most memorable experience with shoes during rehearsals for my first Brünnhilde. We Walküries were given what was tantamount to ballet slippers. The shoes proved to be not only uncomfortable, but also unworkable as we were performing on a very steeply-raked stage and they had a very soft sole. The only way that I could get a grip on the rake was to curl my toes very tightly. This ended up being very painful. My calf muscles and Achilles tendon were also burning like crazy and we hadn’t gotten to the Immolation Scene yet!  In the end I had to demand a pair of shoes with a slightly wedged heel to counter-balance the rake.” I ask you, isn’t singing Brünnhilde hard enough without having to fight gravity too? And who would mess with nine spear-bearing women on a rampage? Obviously a costume designer with a death-wish! Even renowned Swedish Wagnerian Birgit Nilsson is known to have said that “the secret to singing Isolde, was comfortable shoes.”

Indira Mahajan in the tile role of Bess at the Opéra Comique in Paris (Photo Olivier Pascaud)

Indira Mahajan, who received the prestigious 2008 Marian Anderson Award, found a way to make being off-balance work for her character. She commented on the 5-inch patent leather platform shoes she was given to wear as the title role in her recent run of Porgy and Bess in Paris, the fashion capital of the world.

“We all know that platform shoes can be treacherous, just ask model Naomi Campbell. Remember the tumble she took on the runway in those amazing Vivienne Westwood platforms? When I first saw the red platform shoes that costumer Olivier Bériot selected, I was petrified. During the rehearsal process I eventually stopped fighting to maintain my balance and, instead, used the ‘off-balance’ feeling as a dramatic choice. The shoes provided me with a really strong place to build distinguishable physical mannerisms due, in part, to Bess’s relationship with drugs and alcohol. Her shoes became a wonderful opportunity to juxtapose her compromised physicality and her emotional instability. Deconstructing Bess’s shoes became a metaphor for her journey throughout the opera and those fabulous red platform shoes became the window into her broken soul.”  Wow, now that’s an intense image!

Soprano Hanan Alattar‘s star is on the rise and not just because of her recent death-defying stilettos! She reported that she also found a way into her first performances in Massenet’s Manon through her heels. “The best character shoes I’ve worn were this crazy pair given to me for Pousette in Los Angeles and Berlin. I had already constructed my character to fit the Marilyn glamour years, but the shoes told me more about this particular girl. She really pushed the boundaries of taste! They were yellow, orange and red, and they were trying desperately hard to make a statement!!! They were really high heels, so luckily I had them to wear in rehearsal. When I saw them, I knew instantly where to go with her personality, because she is supposed to try hard but still have enough ‘class’ to make Manon wish to be just like her!”

Australia’s leading lady, soprano Cheryl Barker agrees that heels can create an impression. “Recently as Emilia Marty (in the Netherlands Opera production of The Makropulos Affair) I wore high platform shoes for my entrance and it helped me to feel commanding and to have attitude.” However, she also agrees with Elizabeth Byrne that  “it is important to have comfortable shoes that fit properly as often these days we have to run and do all sorts of things on stage. We’re also often working and rehearsing for long hours on raked stages.” Safety is also a factor. The original Mimi in Baz Luhrman’s acclaimed Australian Opera production shared that “once when I was doing La bohème I came on stage for my entrance with shoes that did not have rubberized soles and I promptly slipped.”

Cheryl Barker is most usually known for her graceful movements on stage and her entrance as Cio-Cio San in stage director Moffatt Oxenbould’s stunning production from the Australian Opera has been described as virtually ethereal. “Barker enters the stage as the gossamer winged creature-beautiful and fragile.  In an instant we are spellbound.”(Herald Sun) “Shoes make a huge difference in the characterization,” says our Cio-Cio San. “Tabi, the little sockettes, worn as Madama Butterfly help with the particular Japanese-style of walking. One also feels young and vulnerable without high heels.” Becoming comfortable with these specialty shoes and treating them as an integral part of the exotic costume is essential as Butterfly. It certainly has contributed to Miss Barker’s creation of a memorable portrayal; one which has now been enjoyed by audiences around the world.

American mezzo-soprano Emily Golden performed the title role of Carmen in over three hundred performances worldwide. She also values being grounded. “I always liked doing Carmen barefoot in Act I to help establish the earthiness and rebelliousness of her character.” With her ‘characteristic’ candor, she adds: “That said, hopefully one’s character choices are pretty well formed before the costume department ever gets to your feet!” And that seems to be Emily’s bottom line – literally.

By Alison M. Friedman

(The venue-building fever in Beijing is not confined to giant palaces of culture (China National Centre for the Performing Arts) or sports/pop (Wukesong Arena in the university-filled Haidian District). The “reform and opening up” of the cultural sector has allowed the flowering of independent intimate venues as well. I’ve asked my Beijing-based colleague Alison Friedman to blog about one of the newest, the Peng Hao Theatre. —Cathy Barbash)

What do dentistry and theater performance have in common? Besides the sadistic “Dentist” from Little Shop of Horrors, (or the fact that when done badly, both subject one to torture willingly paid for) it would seem not very much. For Beijing’s Dr. Wang Xiang (pronounced “She-ahng”), however, the two vocations have become the warp and weft of his existence. Despite the success of three private dentistry clinics, he felt his life—and Beijing’s theater scene—was lacking something, so he decided to use the success of his clinics to fund a new theater and café space to encourage small-scale intimate performances in the center of Beijing. Tucked in a hidden alley behind the government-run Central  Academy of Drama, Peng Hao Theater regularly packs the house and in less than a year of existence has  become one of the new “hot spots” for contemporary and experimental performance in Beijing. Alison Friedman spoke with the good doctor to ask him why a theater, why now, and what difficulties he encountered along the way.

AMF: What inspired you to create the Penghao Theatre?

Dr. Wang: Because there are not enough small theaters in Beijing. I’ve been to American and Europe. There are over 1000 small theaters in New York City. Beijing just has five or six, and this already is a lot for a city in China. I’ve done some calculations: In one year, I calculated that if one theater in New York City has 100 people a day, across 1000 theaters that is 100,000 people a day, and in one year that’s almost 36,500,000 theater-goers seeing performances. Watching performances affects them, what they talk about, their development and psychological nutrition, their energy, their spirit. This benefits the level of richness and diversity of their creativity, their economic output and consumption, an individual’s charm, a family’s happiness, hell even the quality of one’s love making!

Because there are so few theaters in Beijing, all these talented performers have to book a space at least a year in advance. There are too few opportunities for artists to perform. This was unbelievably depressing for me, this atmosphere felt repressed. Like America’s civil rights, there is a right to pursue happiness, not just material wealth but spiritual wealth, to protect against not just material but spiritual lack – I felt I suffered from this lack in my life. This lack made me feel stifled, choked, suffocated, so I wanted to lash out against this suffocation. Not just for me but for more people. So I thought, do I make performances, or do I create a venue to allow even more people to create and see theater? Which would reach more people and have the larger impact? I decided it was more important to create a theater venue.

Q: What does “Peng Hao” mean and why did you choose this name for your theater?

A: “Peng Hao” comes from the first line of a Li Bai poem. A “peng hao” person is an ordinary, average person. I named my theater this because I think it should be any average person’s right to walk into a theater and enjoy a performance.

Q: Why didn’t you just do theater from the beginning? Why dentistry?

A: I loved literature since I was little. I loved theater. I saw a lot of Soviet theater performances and read a lot of plays. But at that time in history, the Cultural Revolution, universities were closed and I didn’t have other choices. I only had two: one was to go to the countryside to work with the peasants; the other was to join the army. I chose to join the army and from there I registered for university but at that time they didn’t have any performance colleges in the army, only government and engineering colleges. The best program of study was medicine, so I chose that. After university I got my MA, the first generation of masters in dentistry. I was the first dentist in China to implant artificial teeth, denture implants.  So I was very successful and highly regarded. I worked in the National Navy Hospital for many years, one of the best and largest in China, and then in 1996 started setting up my clinics, the first privately-owned dentist clinics in China.

Q: When did Peng Hao Theater open? Why did you do it when you did it? Was it just the right time personally, or did you feel Beijing in general was ready for such a place?

A: I officially registered the theater on September 25, 2008 but we didn’t receive our performance permit until February 17, 2009.

I chose to do it when I did for two reasons, one personal and one having to do with the larger context in Beijing. A few years ago, I just loved to watch theater. I would see 400-500 performances a year, I saw the National Theater Company of China’s performance of Copenhagen over 30 times! I also started an amateur drama club to put on free performances. We rehearsed in my house and I funded everything. At that time I hadn’t thought to build a theater because I didn’t think there was a need, the theaters weren’t booked. Now, there are even more shows that want to be performed but not more spaces. So I felt there was more of a need.

Then my own need became stronger over the years and I couldn’t wait any longer. I was lonely. I had this dread that society was getting more and more materialistic and shallow. This is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. With the founding, they brought both good and bad. On the one hand, they tried to feed the people who were starving, but the restrictions killed their spirits. After the reform and opening in the 1970s and 80s, China became the world’s factory. It became more prosperous. More people could eat their fill, their material needs were satisfied, but this brought new problems. In order to make sure they could feed the people, the People’s Republic of China had created a system of controls that limited other aspects. Now in this lacking situation, all these material things came in, took up even more inner spiritual space, making it even smaller. Materialism made people even more personally deficient.

I like to see people expressing themselves, this is the most beautiful thing. I don’t want to see so much materialist consumption, eating, drinking, buying cars and houses… I hope even more people can go see theater, this will enrich their spirits! And I won’t be lonely then. I’ll find people who care as much about theater as I do!

Q: Have you funded this theater by yourself, or with other investors? How much did it cost to build the theater, and what is its current operating budget? Do you have an additional budget for presentations?

A: Before I built this, China didn’t have any privately-owned theaters. There were theaters that individuals had built like Southgate Space in 798, but they weren’t able to fill the theaters with performances, and they were too far from city center. They didn’t last. Peng Hao Theater is Beijing and probably all of China’s first privately-owned, privately run, professional theater providing performances for society. 

It’s entirely self- funded. I paid 1,200,000 RMB (approx. USD 175,008) to build it, including renovation, installing the lighting grid, buying all of the light and sound equipment. I have no co-investors; this was all my personal money I have earned from my dentist practice. Our annual operating budget is around 500,000 RMB (approx. USD 73,000), which includes rent at 300,000 RMB (approx. USD 44,000) a year, plus utilities, salaries for my employees, etc. It would have been 10,000,000 RMB (approx. USD 1,458,400) to buy the place so I did not buy, I rent instead.

For productions, there are different arrangements. Some we co-produce, we invest. Another option is we split ticket sales with the performing group or individual.  Our income will not cover operating costs, so I’ll have to add 100,000-200,000 RMB (approx. USD 14,500 – 31,000) each year to cover the deficit.

So this is really non-profit. Even though we sell tickets and we’re not officially registered as a non-profit, in reality we are non-profit. I’m registered as a private enterprise because only recently has China allowed arts institutions to register as non-profit and the laws are not very clear or stable. So I went ahead and registered as a private enterprise. On top of all the costs I mentioned, I still have to pay commercial taxes!!!

Today I was an hour late for your interview because I was taking care of applying for government funding to the Beijing Municipal Propaganda Department and also the Beijing Municipal Cultural and Creative Industries Development Fund. I just sent my materials to them today, to apply for their support. So right now they aren’t helping but I’ve just applied.

China doesn’t have any foundations to support theaters and arts organizations, so I hope any American foundations reading this interview can support my theater! I believe it’s more interesting and meaningful to support a theater, not a one-off performance, as a theater can have a long-term impact!

Q: What steps did you have to follow to get its construction and operation as a venue approved?  

A: It was extremely difficult to set up! It took me a year to find the proper space. It’s just so difficult to find available space in Beijing, everywhere is too crowded! Out in the 798 Art District there is space but it’s too far away. I strongly believe the city center must have culture, but it’s already so crowded!

I went up and down this street [Nan Luo Gu Xiang] knocking on doors, asking if any spaces were for rent. Once I found this space, it took me six months to renovate it. Then there were all the permits and paperwork – paperwork for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, for the ministries that cover health code regulations, fire hazard regulations, the paper work for the Ministry of Culture…. It took me six months. I legally registered on September 25, 2008 and I received my final permit to allow me to host performances on February 17, 2009. So the process from my decision to open a theater until the day it actually opened took two years.

Q: Do operations of the attached bar help subsidize the operation of the theater space? Do you anticipate the theater will ever be self-supporting?

A: I wanted this theater to encourage audiences to stay after seeing a show to talk. This way the experience could last longer. After you are moved by a performance, you stay and keep talking about it. That’s why I wanted the café. Also to help with income. It helps a little.

There may be a day I don’t have to add money to make up the deficit, but it will never make a profit.  That’s just the nature of small theater in any country. But why do people keep doing it? Because it’s the most wonderful thing. It’s a need like the need to eat.

Q: Tell us about the theater itself. How many seats? Ticket prices? What percentage are your own presentations, what percentage rentals?

A: 60-120 seats depending on how they are arranged and how big a performance space is needed. Tickets cost anywhere from 50 to 100 RMB (approx. USD 7-15), depending on the show. About one third of the shows I produce myself, one third are straight rentals, and one third we split box office to cover production costs. These three different methods are unique to my theater. All other theaters in Beijing are just for rent, they don’t self-produce. Of the productions, I’d say about 60% are theater; 20% modern dance; 20% chamber music.

Q: What are the rental rates? Are they sliding rates, depending on who is renting?

A: There are three options:

1. Rent the space for 2000 RMB (approx. USD 290) per performance.

2. No rental and we split the ticket sales 50/50.

3. Rent the space for 1000 RMB (approx. USD 145) per performance and we split ticket sales 30/70 (us/them).

Q: Who runs the venue and how can someone interested in renting it contact that person?

A: My co-producer, Liang Dan Dan (Jennifer Liang) and I run the theater, along with two or three office and café employees.  In the morning I stop by each of my three dentist clinics. My assistant doctor and the head nurse and different doctors are all quite stable, they don’t need me there all the time. So my mornings are there, afternoon and nights at the theater. Sometimes after a performance we still have production meetings to discuss a script or something, so by 1 or 2am I’m finally done. But the next day at 8am I still have to go the dentist offices.

Interested people can email Jennifer: jenniferliang@sina.com, she speaks English. If they read Chinese, they can visit our website at www.penghaoren.com. We will have an English website soon.

Q: What are your aspirations for the venue for the future? Do you plan to create more new small (or larger) venues in Beijing (or other Chinese cities) in the future?

A: I hope we can have even better performances and even more performances. I hope we can receive government and foundation support. If we have this kind of support, and more audiences who are willing to pay for tickets to see theater, then I’d love to open another one, maybe a larger theater, still in Beijing. I also hope to keep helping the better performances go elsewhere to continue to perform. I will sponsor/produce their tours to other theaters after Peng Hao.

Q: What have been your greatest challenges in creating and operating the Penghao, and what your greatest satisfactions?

A: Finding a location was really a huge challenge. I didn’t want to leave city center, but these spaces are too crowded. So it was the first difficult challenge, it took me an entire year to find an appropriate place! The next challenge was designing the style and feeling. This is the first theater designed from a courtyard; I kept the outer structure then built into it. This is the first in the world making a theater out of a courtyard. This is one of my great satisfactions. The application and bureaucratic procedures are too complicated, especially for the performance permit from the Ministry of Culture. Then all the health codes, fire safety codes, passing those, there used to be no standards for fire safety codes. Those were a huge challenge. Before there were no private spaces that applied for a legal performance permit, the other theaters were commercial or government. The Ministry of Culture had never before granted a performance license to a private theater before. I’m the first. This is one of my largest satisfactions. 

Q: Are there things you would do differently? Do you think other people will follow your model?

A: If I had it to do over ten more times, every time I would still do what I’ve done, choose to create Peng Hao Theater to bring more performances to more people. I think lots of people will follow my model, they’ll want to do this, but I don’t know if they can do it, because it’s really just so hard.

by Cathy Barbash

I’m delighted, no, thrilled to report that Anthony A. Hutchinson will become Senior Cultural Affairs Officer at the United States Embassy Beijing on August 2, and Dale Kreisher will become Cultural Affairs Officer in September.

I’ve known Tony since the winter of 2000 when he served as Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate Shanghai, in which capacity he was tremendously helpful to touring American ensembles and other American cultural initiatives. Not only is he a genuine China Hand, he really truly loves the arts. I’ve only just met Dale, but he seems to share Tony’s enthusiasm, knowledge and commitment.

In the civilian realm, Alison Friedman, who has spent seven years in China working with a variety of cultural entities (Fulbright scholar, International Director of Beijing Modern Dance Company, General Manager of Tan Dun’s Parnassus Productions, etc.) will return to Washington , D.C., this fall for a year as a Kennedy Center Fellow.

That will leave more recent arrival and former Luce Scholar Sarabeth Berman, two years now the Program Director of BeijingDance/LDTX, as our resident American modern dance maven in Beijing.

In other dance news, word has it that SUNY Purchase has been actively looking for a dance partner in China for years, but I’ve not yet heard of any final decision.

Janice L. Mayer

photo credit: 2007 Clive Grainger

Joyce Castle is a chameleon, or perhaps in operatic terms she should be classified as a ‘Camille-ion’:  a leading singing-actress capable of moving from one nuanced portrayal to another carefully drawn characterization by utilizing her consummate theatrical skill, musicianship and vocal resources.  If she were a soprano, certainly Verdi’s tragic Violetta (the operatic version of Alexandre Dumas’s 1852 novel La Dame aux Camélias) would be within her grasp. But as a mezzo-soprano with a repertoire of gypsies, witches and one meat-pie baking loony, ‘extreme makeovers’ are often required.  Last week for example, she moved from the Queen of the Fairies in Patricia Birch’s fully-staged production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe with the San Francisco Symphony directly into rehearsals as the Mother in Menotti’s The Consul for Glimmerglass Opera. How does she make these transitions? I went behind the scenes to do some research.  After all, in last week’s blog some of opera’s most character-full tenors shared their tricks of the trade. Time to hear from one of the ladies, I think.

Joseph Frank in last week’s discussion spoke about languages being incredibly important in creating a character in opera.  Joyce Castle agrees.  “Languages are a skill to be reckoned with for most Americans,” she said. “I had to concentrate really hard on the pronunciation and then learn the languages so that I knew what I was singing about.  Coming from the Midwest, I had two years of Latin; that was all of my public school language training. Eventually I moved to Berlin for a short time, and then to Paris where I went to the Alliance Française every day.  Meanwhile, I was doing everything in French. Sometimes I would wish that I had been born in Europe, I mean how many languages does Nicolai Gedda speak…is it ten?” These days, I encourage my students at KU to attend summer immersion programs in languages in France or Italy.

With more dialects at her beck-and-call than Meryl Streep has films, Joyce Castle moves from Gilbert & Sullivan’s outsized Queen of the Fairies (in a largely British cast – sure, no pressure!) to Queen Elizabeth I in Britten’s Gloriana which she performed in the first American stage production at Central City Opera a couple of seasons ago, to Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd which she first performed in Hal Prince’s  production and then on to Mrs. Bertram in Jake Heggie’s opera The End of the Affair which was based on a Graham Greene novel. And let’s not forget Scottish Meg in Brigadoon which she performed at the New York City Opera opposite Broadway veteran Tony Roberts. Many American actors would not make a clear distinction between the various English dialects. “I did a lot of work early on. I first trained as an actress with the works of Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw. So I think of the Queen of the Fairies as speaking in heightened stage English.  With Sweeney, I had to hire a diction coach to learn Cockney and listen to tapes. But then Hal Prince cautioned me to pull back a little; that ‘it has to be clear’ and told me that he said the same thing to Angela Lansbury when

she performed the role on Broadway.  It can’t be too much or the audience won’t understand me. One can’t possibly know all of the regional accents such as Mrs. Bertram’s English seaside dialect.”  With a wink, she offers that she wouldn’t “have to work too hard for a Midwest or an East Texas dialect, but there aren’t too many operas set there!”

“Diction is unbelievably important to me.  I want to be understood in German and French or I can’t tell the story. And I have to tell the story. Once I know where I fit into the story from my vantage point, then I can find my way through the labyrinth.  And then of course, if I’m in the character and know what the other people on stage mean to me, I’m home free – really safe – and I can enjoy myself.”  

I asked the mezzo-soprano if she goes back to the original source material when she is portraying an operatic character that has been drawn from another medium? Claire Zakanassian in Von Einem’s The Visit of the Old Lady, which was first a straight play, comes immediately to mind.  “I read the play and go back to any original material I can find.” That amounted to a lot of research when she portrayed Queen Elizabeth I.  I had a friend stay over and after looking at the bookshelves in the guest room, I was asked if “I ever read anything that was not about Elizabeth or the Tudors?! And I read a lot about the life of the Carmelites when I originally prepared for Mother Marie and then later for the Old Prioress in The Dialogues of the Carmelites. At Glimmerglass Opera I had the good fortune to be directed by Tazewell Thompson who drew on his wealth of personal experience having been raised by nuns in a cloistered environment. He had first-person experience in that setting which he was able to bring into the rehearsal room. In Santa Fe, I would go by the Carmelites convent and watch them – and, well, er see what I could see.  Well you don’t see much, and that tells you something too.”

Darren Keith Woods spoke of observing people moving in Central Park for hours at a time so that he could incorporate individualized stances and walks into his characterizations.  I asked Joyce Castle how she developed the physical side of her characters, especially given the wide age range and socio-economic differences of the women she portrays? “Observing is good,” she concurred. “When I was in acting school I would sit in bus and train stations, and cafes to watch people.  Actors need to be observers.  I don’t plan my gestures, except in musicals where there might be a set movement. My physicality comes from knowing the character.  The body will work with the inner story of the character; everyone has physical inner instinctive knowledge and if you plug into that emotion then the body will follow.” Just this week alone she moved from a fictional royal fairy frolicking with young dancers culled from the San Francisco Ballet corps to an elderly war-worn mother behind the iron curtain. I can only imagine that this must be a physical challenge as well as a musical one.

As Augusta Tabor, which she will perform in her eighth production of The Ballad of Baby Doe this fall, she has been confronted with an Augusta with varying degrees of physical limitations. In her first production she was wheelchair-bound by the final curtain. I wondered how this restriction impacted on the character. “Augusta is old and weak by the end of the opera. Even when she walks, she doesn’t walk that well.  That impacts then on how you get up from a chair.  I’ve seen my mother get older and have been in nursing homes and I go back to observing.  Of course, if it is your mother who is becoming more fragile and you’re doing Strawberry Fields (Michael Torke and A.R. Gurney’s opera premiered by Miss Castle at Glimmerglass) and you walk in and sit on a bench, there are things that are inherent.”

Joseph Frank also spoke about musicianship and how he finds piano skills lacking in many of his undergraduate students because they are not given music instruction in public schools any longer. I asked Joyce Castle about her piano background having heard that she started playing at an early age. “I began studying piano at age six and then added cello and clarinet early on.  Later I played the tenor saxophone so that I could be in the jazz band and oboe because I thought it was a cool instrument. But I’m really a piano groupie and have even played my own piano solo as Begbick in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and my own cello solo as Lady Jane in Patience. Musical skills are important to develop because then you’ll know how to count. I seem to have a strong suit in rhythm and I like math, which may be why I like to do modern music. I love tearing apart a new score.” The artist who recorded the Old Lady on the Grammy Award-winning recording of Candide added “I’ve been able to ‘assimilate’ roles very quickly as a result: Without missing a beat, I was onstage as Siebel at San Francisco Opera – my first professional role – thirty hours after being assigned the role for the first time.  I joined rehearsals – in Russian – at the Metropolitan Opera three days after being engaged and I didn’t know a note before. I was contracted for my first Baby Doe (Augusta Tabor) two days before rehearsals began. I remember asking Beverly Sills what she missed most about singing and she said ‘opening that new score’ – I couldn’t agree more – it’s thrilling!

Joyce Castle not only ‘heard’ Beverly Sills, she sang with her as well. And she most certainly ‘listened’ to Leonard Bernstein when she was invited to give the first performance of Arias and Barcarolles with him at the piano. She also listens on stage. “Listening is just everything. If I’m in the story I listen to others on stage and I’m listening to my own thoughts as the character.  The rests are also very important – they’re in the music too. They provide time for breath and punctuation; they’re part of the phrase that is emotion and drama-filled.

Other composers with whom she has collaborated are Michael Torke, Judith Weir and Ricky Ian Gordon. “Singing recitals keeps me honest and I give one every year:

1 singer/1pianist.” Often new music is included. “Ricky arranged some songs for me – put some instruments to them and that was fun! Jake (Heggie) came to see me and we talked a lot before he composed Statuesque, and he found a librettist in Gene Scheer who knew me well. Bill Bolcom is now writing a new vocal chamber work for me and we’ve been going back and forth discussing possible texts.”

In last week’s article Steven Cole, Joseph Frank and Darren Keith Woods spoke about the importance of makeup and costuming for artists performing character-full roles. Joyce Castle agrees, “When you look in the mirror and see a different look it gives you so much. I had a wig-fitting today at Glimmerglass and we were discussing which wig ‘fits’ how I feel about this character.” And costumes? Steven Cole would agree with Joyce Castle’s comment that “if you’re in a witch’s costume with a green tongue and a fake nose it will obviously impact on how you stand and deliver.” She adds, “It’s not the same as walking out in a black sequined gown and heels. Shapes will change you too. If you’re wearing hoops it affects how you go through a door and how you sit down. You have to wear them awhile in rehearsal to get used to it.  I prefer wearing clothes to rehearsal that would be like what my character would be wearing onstage.  I try to wear a skirt if my character will be in a skirt, or pants if it is a pants role. And I get my hair out of my face. It helps me and it helps the director see you in the story. Hats are wonderful too; the Cendrillon hats designed by Andre Barbe for my role of Madame de la Haltière were really funny!” I would say, literally over the top! “Shoes also make a difference in how you stand and walk. I need to be comfortable, but after that, I know that if I wear heels it will help me walk in a more stately manner and if I have clunky, oxford-looking shoes I will walk with a more measured gait.” Her most memorable shoes? Nary a false step here, she immediately named the “Thigh-high boots I had for my Met debut as Waltraute! Wow – running up that hill in those boots was really something!”

Joyce Castle has more than risen to many a challenge on stage, and as she anticipates celebrating the 40^th anniversary of her professional career, she looks forward to continuing to ‘climb every mountain’ – even those as high as Valhalla!

The China National Center for the Performing Arts has been open now for a year and a half. While Henry Sanderson’s recent article in the Associated Press covered the basics, I feel compelled both to amplify and correct.

Despite the Center’s newness, it shut down the second half of March, ostensibly for maintenance. However, a reliable source within the organization told me it was really because the marketing staff had convinced themselves that it would be too difficult to attract audiences during the period between the end of Spring Festival and other spring holiday periods and would rather just shut down. Vertical and horizontal integration in arts administration has not yet arrived in China; hopefully such team spirit will develop soon.

Though Sanderson states correctly that the complex is never expected to be fully self-supporting, I disagree with his statement that it gets next to nothing from corporate sponsors. The CNCPA’s development department, lead by Pan Yong, a former Kennedy Center arts management fellow, last year raised 60 million renminbi (US$8.8 million) in cash and in-kind sponsorships. Notably, that amount came 50/50 from Chinese and international sources. As of April, Pan Yong projected the need to raise 75 million rmb more this year, 40 million of which had been already pledged.

The CNCPA is also pursuing arts education and audience development activities full tilt. When we met in March, Director Chen Ping proudly explained that of the almost 1000 public performances last year, a third were not-for-profit “for the public good” presentations. In addition, there were 800 all-ages educational performances, with 320,000 in attendance; tickets for these weekend educational concerts cost the equivalent of just US$1.50. There were also over 400 lectures on classical music, plus several hundred more on other performing arts topics. The CNCPA may have endured a prolonged gestation; now they are trying to make up for lost time.

The National Symphony Orchestra recently joined the growing list of major American and international orchestras appearing at the CNCPA. My colleague Anne Midgette, who accompanied the tour, observed that what she’d expected to find in China but didn’t seem to encounter were huge audiences eager to hear Western music. However, she did feel she’d found a more discriminating, more sophisticated audience, and I think the absence of a huge audience for the NSO is directly related. The Chinese are highly brand sensitive. During the CNCPA’s inaugural season and a half, Beijing audiences have already heard the top orchestras in the world.  Audiences are now savvy enough to realize that there are status hierarchies between orchestras as well.

Midgette also wondered how the young audience members could afford concert tickets. In fact, many tickets are still sold to corporations or given to government entities or sponsors, who in turn give them away. The well-connected music-loving young and even not-so-young music lovers are expert in finding the freebies. As for those taped pre-concert announcements she describes, they hold a special place in my heart. Full disclosure: 11 years ago, my family and I visited the soon-to-open Shanghai Grand Theatre. Their artistic administrator, remembering my husband’s professional bass-baritone resonance, kidnapped him into the sound booth. His rich and amused-sounding voice welcomes audience members to this day.