words shruti vashist

Liu Sola, whose new chamber opera picks at women who use men to gain power, has brought many firsts to the Chinese music scene – the first Chinese blues song, Reborn, the first Chinese rock opera, Blue Sky Green Sea. Renowned as a vocalist, composer and fiction writer, Liu Sola is in town to perform her opera Fantasy of the Red Queen for the first time in Hong Kong and describes it as “a diverse mixture that has probably never happened in China.”

In Hong Kong the opera will be performed in Putonghua with English and Chinese subtitles but the preview I have come to see in Sola’s office is a recording of a 2006 Putonghua performance, with German subtitles only, at Berlin’s House of World Cultures China Festival. Knowing neither Putonghua nor German, as I settle to watch, I wonder how much I will understand or appreciate.

But I am in for a surprise – not only is the storyline quite clear, the opera is enjoyable, even with my lack of understanding. Anyone could follow the ambitious Red Queen as she uses the help of the devil to gain power but is
ultimately led into disaster – interestingly, while the work is a tragedy, it is lightly, even humorously, presented.

It is also easy, I find, to relate to the universal appeal of the music with its many forms from Chinese opera, Western opera, Mandopop, hip-hop to the blues. But even more intriguing is the dramatic interplay between the Red Queen and the devil as they dance in front of the projection of a traditional Chinese woman in striking attitudes.

Sola both directs and performs (as the Red Queen) in the opera and when I ask her about the significance of the dance she explains that the Red Queen is taught Chinese traditional art by the devil, an expert. He shows her how to use it to become politically powerful – the scene, Sola explains, is basically a critique of propaganda art. "Propaganda art is rampant in China. My view is that it is wrong to use art against real art in this way. That’s why in Fantasy of the Red Queen, it ultimately leads to her downfall and disappointment.”

The film projection, a Peking opera image of a traditional woman from the 1930s, is used to powerfully depict the various faces of a woman attaining power and is representative of the changes in the Red Queen. Sola says her character was inspired by the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Both ludicrous and horrifying (her answer to every slight inconvenience is “Chop off his/her head!”), Carroll’s character continually harms others in the wielding of her authority. Sola’s Red Queen, though less uni-dimensional, is blind with ambition and also relentless in the pursuit of power, which leads to her downfall.

According to Sola, we are in a really confusing generation for women. In the early decades of the 20th century, a woman still relied on a man for everything. Although today’s ambitious woman has learned to fight for what she wants in a modern China, she still sometimes reverts to reliance on a man’s position to reach the top, commercially and politically.

“The idea of getting a man to become powerful/successful is popular in China, and even around the world. But the Red Queen’s story shows that if you don’t rise on your own abilities, and use a man’s position to do so instead, it will always lead to disappointment,” says Sola.

The opera’s music is integral to the protagonist’s journey through the fantasy of power to her disappointment and ultimate suicide and Sola found the musicians she wanted in Ensemble Modern, a group from Germany comprising 18 soloists from Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Poland and Switzerland. Their cultural and musical diversity immediately impressed her. “I think they are the best instrumentalists in the world – in my opinion the only ones who can achieve such a mixture. I saw them perform in Germany and decided to collaborate with them.”

Although the music is generally in the style of Chinese and Western opera, more current forms are also used, especially with the character of the nurse. “The nurse represents a contemporary character and we found a versatile singer (Wu Jang) to play her role. Her songs bring in Hong Kongpop, Shanghai pop and Chinese hip-hop (Kuaiban art),” says the composer. In the course of the story, she breaks the stage’s ‘fourth wall’ to make the musicians part of the action. “I like musicians. This show is for musicians and music lovers, so I thought it would be nice if we brought them on stage,” she explains.

With her love for and dedication to music, I ask her what she likes better, to sing or compose. “Singing, composing, acting and even fictional writing they are all similar,” is her reply. “Music, to me is like writing literature it should tell a story, and that is when people really sit up and listen to it.”

Fantasy of the Red Queen will be staged on November 7 and 8 at Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium, at 8pm. Tickets are $420, $320, $220, $150 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.