The Chinese premiere of the
one-act opera La Voix Humaine is the most appealing event during
the Sino-French artistic festival.
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Shanghai has been referred to as the Paris of the East ever since
the early 1930s. "The artists and audience here show a kinship to
operas, dramas, films and novels," says Wu Xiaolu, a young Shanghai
art critic who is enjoying a flourish of French this week.
The Sino-French artistic festival began Wednesday and aims to
link Shanghai closer to French culture. This year's festival
includes 22 different programs in music, theater, literature,
painting, sculpture and film.
Shanghai was one of the first Chinese cities influenced by
Western culture, and Paris was a leading light for the China's city
by the sea.
Zhang Hong, professor in the institute of Cultural Criticism At
Tongji University said Paris is a great city and Shanghai, in its
current stage, is a big city. "Shanghai has a lot to learn from
Paris," he said.
Wu, art critic, said the artistic relationship between China and
France had deepened thanks to more than 200 cultural exchanges
since the start of the Sino-French Year. Many such events had come
to Shanghai.
Claude Hudelot, the cultural consul of French consulate-general
in Shanghai, said the festival was an opportunity for new artistic
works to be born. Wu noted the Chinese premiere of the one-act
opera La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice), an operatic version of
Jean Cocteau's famed drama, was the most appealing event on the
program. "The work not only reflects the mentality of a French
woman in the 1930s when it was first staged in Paris in 1959, but
it reveals the inner world of many Chinese women especially those
living in Shanghai today."
Li Wei, the opera's director, said Cocteau wrote La Voix Humaine
in 1930 however the operatic version wasn't staged until 1959 after
Cocteau collaborated with his good friend and renowned composer
Francis Poulenc. "It is a 50-minute opera performed merely by one
actress accompanied only with a piano, but it is very intriguing,"
Li said.
(China Daily April 19, 2008)?
