Soprano Xu Jing's life has been filled with luck and misfortune, a contradictory combination of glamour and gloom, struggle and serenity.
Her road to stardom should have been smooth, as she was born into a musician's family. Her mother was a soprano and her late father was a violin player and concertmaster of the China Central Orchestra (now known as China National Symphony Orchestra).
Yet it was not until she was 24 (much older than normal college students) that she was finally admitted into the China Central Conservatory of Music. Before that, she had been sent down to the countryside after her middle school graduation, and she had to endure several years laboring in the fields working on a farm. Later she also served as a soldier for over four years.
"I was born into music and it flowed in my blood even before I could talk as a baby, although it was only later in life that I realized how much I loved it," said Xu, who has been in the singing profession for 30 years since her teens. A key member with the Chorus of China National Symphony Orchestra, she has been China's first-grade national-level performer, the same level equivalent to that of a college professor in China.
Her ears were filled with her father's violin melodies, ever since as an infant she played with her dolls or her building blocks at home. "When later in college I was exposed to music works in classes, I wondered why those works seemed so familiar - I had heard them a long time ago in my childhood!" recalled Xu.
Yet her first real encounter with music struck her as painful. Her father taught her to play the violin from five years old. When she could not produce good sounds, her father would rap her fingers with a pencil. "Music was a terrible word to me then, and I felt so afraid with that pencil in his hand," recalled Xu. Her violin training stopped two years later, to her relief, yet to her father's grief. "Luckily my father could pass on his love for violin via my younger sister, who later became a professional violin player," said Xu.
Xu's timidity and reserved character let her down many times, stopping her from grabbing many chances for success.
Her first big mistake came when she was sent to go to the countryside to work as a peasant, although many of her friends went on to study in high schools. "I just did not know why," she said. In those years of the 1970s, her parents had been busy playing and singing revolutionary works such as sample plays like Shajiabang. Kept busy with the teamwork and communal-style living, they had little time to care for her. "My mother taught me singing for one year, also piano playing, hoping that I could find a job so that I need not go to countryside, but in vain."
Village life changed her from a pale-looking girl into a plump, strong woman. Never having done such hard work before, she suffered from pains in the back, and had her feet injured in accidents. "I just felt that this farming life was not my destiny," Xu said. Lost in her musical obsessions, she would spend hours after work, hiding herself in the boundless golden wheat fields, singing songs one after another. Her tears streamed down like water. "I felt either I was touched by those songs or I pitied myself. Music consoled my soul and set it free for a while. Then I would wipe away all my tears and resume working again like nothing had happened."
She later worked as a performer in the army, yet she was determined to go further in learning the vocal arts, so she spent two years at home to study by herself before she was finally able to gain admission into the conservatory.
"I cherished my schooling so that I studied hard, yet in the first three years I did not find ideal teachers, nor anyone sympathetic to my way of singing," recalled Xu. People who listened to her singing said something was always wrong. What was worse, she found her strained vocal chords were bleeding at some points.
In her second time in life to feel lost and dissatisfied with herself, her father helped her find her future tutor Guo Shuzhen, who saved her by pointing out her way of singing. "My teacher was such a great person that she solved my problem decisively," Xu said. In the first three months, her teacher did not teach her any singing, but just kept talking with her, dissolving her many doubts so that Xu could totally depend on her.
"It was like she led me to cross a dangerous, narrow wooden bridge over a canyon. After crossing, the road was just wide and bright," Xu said.
After graduation, her career became smooth and has been so ever since. Many of the foreign artists she has worked with, such as Romanian soprano Ileana Cotrubas and US conductor Thomas Hilbish, have praised her as a sincere singer and star with a pure, beautiful voice that is not so dramatic, yet sweet, lyrical and perfect for highlighting chamber music works.
To gain more experience, she volunteered to sing in church choirs for eight years, leading the voices. "I was not a religious person, but I wanted to feel how Westerners sing, since church music was an integral part of their history," Xu said. "I felt so happy singing in church because I found a perfect sense of structure blending my voice with that of the architecture."
Xu tried many genres and gets inspiration from all styles of music and also other categories of arts. Besides Chinese, she can sing well in Italian, French, German and Latin. Every time she sings, she prepares well by mastering not only the lyrics and melodies, but also the stories behind the lines so that she herself turns into the depicted heroine. "My father's initial harsh training of me still works - it keeps driving me on in my sincere attitude toward music."
Offstage, she shifts her focus to tutoring ordinary people in how to sing.
Her big dream now is to spread her knowledge of the vocal arts to as many people as possible, and especially to youngsters.
After grief and glory, Xu can face all the ups and downs with a peaceful mind. "Music has always been a doctor to the soul, and that is what I would like to share and spread with other friends."
(China Daily September 1, 2005)
