CHINOPERL’s Metamorphoses—Some Memories at her 50th Birthday

CHINOPERL’S METAMORPHOSES—SOME MEMORIES AT HER 50TH BIRTHDAY BELL YUNG University of Washington Harold Shadick: There is no other literature in the world in which the oral is more important. Catherine (Kate) Stevens: … that literature in which performance makes a difference. John McCoy: “Performance” seems to be the key to this discussion. Cyril Birch: … instead of giving papers, perhaps we could give reports on our research in the area in a more informal manner. Jim Crump: … [let] the name for this group be: Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature. (Yuen Ren Chao later coined it CHINOPERL) (Discussion at the first meeting, on March 31, 1969 [CHINOPERL News 1, 9–22], selected quotes.) MY FIRST CONFERENCE I attended my first CHINOPERL meeting on March 24 and 25 1972, its fourth, held in Risley Hall on the Cornell University Campus. As it was during spring break, we were housed in an emptied-out student dormitory. The campus was almost completely deserted, which gave our gathering a magical feeling. In this enchanted environment of quiet, chilly, and exquisite landscape of hills, lakes, gorges, and bridges, parts of which were still covered with snow, I heard two days of reports and discussions on Chinese oral and performing literature. There were four reports, taking up the four slots of the mornings and afternoons of the two-day conference. First, Rulan Chao Pian (Harvard University) reported on “Word Treatment in Chinese Popular Entertainment,” citing as examples xiangsheng 相聲 (cross-talk), Shandong kuaishu 山東快書 (Shandong fast tales), Xihe dagu 西 河大鼓 (Xihe drumsinging), Jingyun dagu 京韻大鼓 (Peking drumsinging), Fengdiao dagu 奉調大鼓 (Fengdiao drumsinging), Yueju 越劇 (Zhejiang ballad opera), and CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 38. 1 (July 2019): 3–9© The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2019 DOI 10.1080/01937774.2019.1631046 danxian 單絃 (medley song).1 Playing specific pieces from recorded performances, and distributing musical notation transcribed from these recordings, she discussed the different musical treatments of words in each genre. In each case, she raised a specific issue, such as the subtleties of timing in xiangsheng. The second report, by Milena Doleželová (University of Toronto), was a review of Boris Riftin’s Istoricheskai ͡ a ėpopei ͡ a i folʹklornai ͡ a tradit ͡sii ͡ a v Kitae: ustnye i knizhnye versii “Troet ͡sarstvii ͡ a” (Historical romance and folklore tradition in China: Oral and printed versions of the Three Kingdoms), published in Moscow in 1970. Riftin examined, analyzed, and compared three different texts on the Sanguo 三國 (Three Kingdoms) story: the well-known fourteenth-century novel Sanguozhi yanyi 三國志 演義 (Elaboration of the Records of the Three Kingdoms) attributed to Luo Guanzhong 羅貫中; the early “folk book” Quanxiang pinghua Sanguozhi 全相平話三國志 (Completely Illustrated Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language), which drew on the oral narrative tradition traceable back to at least the Tang dynasty; and three modern Yangzhou pinghua 楊州評話 (Yangzhou storytelling) versions, recorded in the 1950s and 60s and subsequently transcribed. The third presentation by Robert Ruhlmann (University of Paris) also engaged the issue of the relationship between the oral and the written by examining the Wu Song story cycle as performed again in the Yangzhou pinghua tradition by the renowned Wang Shaotang 王少堂, recorded in 1953 and transcribed and published in 1959. Ruhlmann made references to another set of orally transmitted versions performed by other performers and transcribed and published in 1962 as well as the Wu Song excerpt from the well-known novel Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳. He noted that, just in terms of the number of words, the novel has 80,000, while Wang Shaotang’s version has 800,000! The last presentation was by Bruce Brooks (Harvard University) on “Comparative Analysis of Arias in Yuanqu and Peking Opera,” which examined versions of a single tune with the title “Dianjiangchun” 點絳唇 (Ruby Lips) as used in different vocal genres, including Yuanqu 元曲 (Yuan opera), zhugongdiao 諸宮調 (ballads in “all keys and modes”), sanqu 散曲 (independent songs), Kunqu 崑曲 (Kun opera) and Jingju 京劇 (Peking opera). Musical transcriptions in Western staff notation were distributed to aid the discussion. He pointed out that musical examples from the well-known Jiugong dacheng nanbei ci gongpu 九宮大成南北詞宫譜 (Great Compendium of Formularies for Southern and Northern Songs in the Nine Musical Modes; 1747) for the older genres probably do...