Last Updated on October 20, 2024
A Hero’s Life(less appendage)
What do you get when you cross Western classical music with Chinese drama? For the past twenty years, director Chen Xinyi has been answering that question with her genre, “symphony poetry drama,” which mixes drama with music by writing the drama to fit the music rather than vice versa. Inspired by a performance of Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Chen Xinyi wrote a story about Han dynasty Eunuch Cai Lun, credited with the invention of paper. The two were combined in Cai Lun Ein Heldenleben, first premiered in China and performed in the UK at LSO St Lukes.
And how were they combined? Why by simply plonking one on top of the other. The scenes of the drama were either performed shouted over the top of the music or acted between the movements. The problem with writing drama to fit existing music is the music is already designed to be entertaining by itself. It felt like watching two mutually exclusive works performed at the same time, a total lack of symbiosis. Even when the music was allowed to run alone, an overhead projector showed videos. Sometimes these were snippets of dance, presumably from the Chinese production. Sometimes they were titbits of information about the use of paper.
There were undeniably moments where the emotion of the play and that of the music were in sync, but for each of these there was a slew of uncomfortable clashes.
The main theme of the drama was Cai Lun’s emasculation. Determined to learn the smithing techniques of the imperial palace he sacrificed his genitals to gain entry. Much of the dialogue between him and his father revolves around how that has affected their potential legacy. In the second half, Cain Lun demonstrates how, much like Horace’s ‘Non Omnis Moriar’, what he’s created shall last forever. His creation has a far greater impact on humanity than his family could have done. As an ultimate gesture of the power of his creation, he uses paper reels to buy back the greatest treasure he could think of.
From the underground vaults of the palace, Cai Lun recovers something beyond worth, trading fortunes of paper for it. When presented with the treasure his father is astounded that Cai Lun has retrieved that which he lost. It’s his dick in a box. One shudders to think of the smell that the palace penis vault must have had.
Ein Heldenleben usually runs to around 45 minutes. Cai Lun Ein Heldenleben lasted two and a half hours including the interval. Much of this was the pre-show, during show, and post-show bloviation sessions from the director. None of which were advertised on the programme. Among the mass of words were anecdotes about what music she listened to as a child, grandiloquent self-regard “Strauss was great, Cai Lun was great and I am also great” and a full 15 minutes of thanking everyone she could think to thank at the end. None of it elucidated any of the performance and all of it smacked of an indulgent disregard for the audience. In peak irony, there was a 3-minute solo discourse on the importance of self-reflection during the pre-show blather.
Conductor Raffaello Morales stressed the lack of rehearsal time but his Fidelio orchestra gave a reasonable performance of Ein Heldenleben. Against the militaristic struggle of the 4th movement, the violins always swept in sweetly as a relief. There were some pitch problems in the brass, throwing some unwarranted dissonance into the E-Flat major conclusion. But the main issue was the space, LSO St Luke’s is not large and Heldenleben is a loud piece of music. With no fewer than 8 horns it was often overly loud. The principal violinist was excellent however and each of her solo moments was a real highlight, a shame they were shouted over.
LSO St Luke’s
UBS and LSO Music Education Centre
161 Old Street
London
EC1V 9NG
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