Now I will point out for you some contrasts between Kunqu opera and, say, Western opera.
In Kunqu opera you will find that there's no choral singing. Very little.
In a few scenes you will find a group of people singing the same tune in unison.
There's no harmony in Kunqu. Everything is melodic.
There's even very little in the way of duets,
or responsorials, where one person sings one line and another sings another line.
This is very rare but it does happen in Kunqu.
Sometimes people are waiting for an exciting choral ending to a scene.
That doesn't happen in Kunqu.
In Kunqu, the high point of the scene is usually somewhere… either just before, or right after the middle of a piece (or scene).
And then it quiets down, shall we say, and ends on a very calm note,
which is often in an unmetered (rhythmic) style.
In Western music you'll find that it is entirely sung, especially in opera.
Kunqu is something more like a Western musical
where you have singing, and you have dialogue.
And you have speech. You have soliloquys and you have dialogues.
In Kunqu the language of the singing is based on the dialect of the Wu region,
that is, the Yangzi River delta region…
Shanghai, Suzhou, and that area.
Even within that small area there are many dialects.
The language of Kunqu is based on that dialect
but it is a stage language.
Now sometime in the 17th-18th centuries,
Singers, and let's say Kunqu lovers, have developed a style of singing,
because of the melismatic nature of the melody,
of dividing each word into three parts:
the <i>initial</i>, <i>the medial</i>, and the <i>final</i>.
The words I'm using here are what linguists use today
because every syllable has an initial consonant,
a vowel in the middle, and sometimes an ending (consonant)…
an –n or –m, or as, in the Wu dialect a clipped, or glottal stop at the end.
So when you hear a singer sing,
the emphasis is on the initial consonant, then the vowel, and then the ending.
Now let me give an example in the aria that I just sang for you.
The third word: <i>chen jiang “xiang”</i>:
<i>xi-aa-ng</i>
I sing it in three parts.
Now according to the Chinese theorists
this is supposed to make the libretto, or the words of the song, easier to understand.
I happen to find it exactly the opposite.
When you break a word into three parts
it makes it harder for me to understand.
But that’s the theory.
Now when you listen to a Kunqu aria
you have to be aware of the fact that sometimes one word sounds like three words.
To me, it doesn’t make it easier to understand
But you can just have to accept this as part of the style of this music.
There is another aspect of the singing.
that even in the medial, the vowel part,
you don't just sing it straight, because that's not the style.
For example in the aria “Black silk gown” the third word “<i>cha</i>”:
if you sing it according to the melody “<i>cha</i>…..”
So you can sing it that way.
But it doesn't sound as good as if I sing it…
“<i>cha…ï…a…ï…a…a</i>”
I'd bite on the word little bit,
I alter the shape of my mouth.
So what is “a” sounds like “a…ï…a… ï.. a’ a”
…in speech it sounds terrible.
In singing it's fine.
In Kunqu singing this is called “<i>yaozi</i>”: biting the word.
In other words when you draw out a vowel
you actually alter the sound a little bit.
The spoken part(in Kunqu), however, is done in two linguistic styles.
The major characters in the play speaks in an intoned speech style.
For example if I say in ordinary speech: “<i>Hao tianqi ya!</i>” “What a fine day!”
But in the (stage) speech they would say:
“<i>Hao tian qi yeeee</i>”
So it's also a kind of singing.
Now in some plays there is a comic role, someone who just makes jokes, livens up the atmosphere a little bit.
The comic actor often speaks in vernacular, that is, the local dialect.
There are two (three) local dialects that are frequently used in Kunqu: the Suzhou dialect, the Yangzhou dialect, (and Beijing dialect).
Yangzhou is a city that's is further north from Nanjing and Suzhou.
And in earlier times Yangzhou used to be the Manhattan of China.
Prof. Wei Hua 華瑋Professor and Division Head
Prof. Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai 白先勇Wei Lun Professor of Humanities
Prof. Lindy Li Mark 李林德Professor Emerita
