National tradition as an innovation factor in Guo Wenjing’s chamber opera “Wolf Cub Village”

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The modern stage of development of Chinese musical theater is associated with a significant role in creative experiment, the search for new artistic means. These processes have gone down in history as an artistic direction under the name “new wave”. It emerged in 1976 as a confrontation with the aftermath of the cultural revolution. It combines trends in the revival of national Chinese traditions and the introduction of modern compositional writing methods. In the works of representatives of this direction, a deep understanding of the uniqueness of the aesthetics of ancient Chinese music, the originality of its rhythm and timbre richness is restored. These features are vividly embodied in the Opera “Wolf Cub Village” by Guo Wenjing (郭文景, born in 1956). The theme of the transformation of traditional Chinese musical art in modern times under the conditions of Western influences and the formation of new Chinese music raises by Chinese researchers in one way or another. But the issue of national tradition as a factor of innovation is considered tangentially. Thus, the subject of the article, which reveals the features of the implementation of the traditional chamber opera “Wolf Cub Village” by Guo Wenjing, is looking up-to-date. Recent research and publications. An Luxin in the dissertation “Research of Guo Wenjing’s musical creativity” (2012) traces the stylistic features of Guo Wenjing’s work and analyzes many of his works, but the reason of significant amount of material studied, the composer’s opera heritage is highlighted in generalized way. Guo Wenjing’s own article (2016) as well as materials published in his book “Noise” (2009), are a valuable source of information about the composer’s idea of the opera. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to identify the mechanisms of innovations in the implementation of the national Chinese tradition in Guo Wenjing’s chamber opera “Wolf Cub Village”. The study used methods developed in modern musicology, in particular, theoretical, historical and cultural analysis, as well as the method of theoretical generalization. For the first time, the embodiment of the national tradition in the opera work by the contemporary Chinese composer is considered as a factor of artistic innovations. Research results and conclusion. Guo Wenjing’s appeal to the national traditions of Chinese music is associated with the two way orientation of the “new wave” flow that emerged in Chinese professional composing music. We are talking about transforming deep Chinese national traditions along with the use of modern compositional techniques. It is proved that in European opera this approach becomes an artistically effective means of updating the modern musical language. As a result of the study, Guo Wenjing’s opera “Wolf Cub Village” revealed a number of innovations, the source of which was the Chinese verbal language and traditional music. These include: a) the invention of new methods of vocal and declamatory articulation of the Chinese language, the expansion of the range of vocal and performing techniques, the creation of a special style of singing that combines European bel canto and intense high declamatory singing of the Chinese traditional opera; b) the use of features of the sound and semantics of instrumental accompaniment of traditional Chinese opera and the formation of a new poly-national composition of the orchestra; c) the introduction of characters into the opera that saturate the plot with figurative intonations of Chinese folklore; d) the use of metro-tempo models (banshi) of Chinese traditional opera. By introducing the elements of Chinese traditional music into the opera, the composer expanded the instrumental and vocal timbre palettes, enriched the work with a bright national flavor and significantly diversified the techniques of musical expressiveness of Western-style opera.