Puccini's Turandot is coming to Dublin, complete with Chinese opera singers. Clifford Coonanattended auditions in Guangzhou.
Chen Yan comes from Kunming, in the wild and beautiful southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. Her ascent to the stage is not especially graceful, and she seems distracted as she gives the accompanist in the auditorium of the Xinhai Conservatory of Music her music. But when this mezzo-soprano starts to sing from Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro, her talent fills the room and Dieter Kaegi, artistic director of Opera Ireland, gives a barely discernable, but definite, nod of approval.
Chen Yan is one of 30 hopefuls singing for the Swiss director today. Kaegi came to Guangzhou, southern China, in search of a chorus - Opera Ireland wants to inaugurate the newly refitted Gaiety theatre with a performance of Turandot. Giacomo Puccini's opera is set in the imperial palace of Peking, and Kaegi needs Chinese singers.
After her performance, Chen enthuses about Bizet, her favourite composer, and her love of French.
"My parents were sceptical at first of my desire to become a Western opera singer, but they now support me," she says in her thick Yunnan accent.
"I've just seen Ireland on TV and I know it's very beautiful. This is my first time abroad, so when I get there I want to study what's going on around me and open my eyes to everything in Ireland," she says.
The night before the auditions, Kaegi and a number of teachers and singers eat in a Cantonese restaurant.
The Cantonese are famous for eating anything that swims, flies or walks on four legs, and over carp cooked in oil and ginger, pork stomach and crisp Chinese cabbage, Kaegi talks of how Chinese voices are an increasing presence on the music scene and how for him the priority is that the singers have strong, healthy voices.
"Turandot is a great challenge for the chorus, a lot of it is written for the chorus. We also chose Turandot because the Gaiety is being refurbished.
"Before, we were limited by the size of the orchestra pit. The new refurbished pit has one-third more orchestra pit space, and one of the biggest orchestral operas in the 20th century is Turandot," he says.
Puccini was fascinated by Eastern culture, as Madama Butterfly attests.
Turandot is set in the Forbidden City and is the story of a cold-hearted Chinese princess who, in order to avoid marriage, declared that any suitor must answer three riddles correctly - or die.
The conservatory is one of nine in China and the only one in the south of the country, and its reputation is extremely good. It has 2,000 students, of whom 600 are studying singing and around 1,000 are learning piano.
TANG YONGBAO, DEPARTMENT chairman, was one of the driving forces from the Chinese side on organising the auditions, but he is indisposed. Another enthusiastic helper is Prof Bi Baoyi, a flamboyant performer and teacher originally from Harbin in the north of China, who moved to Beijing before doing her degree at Weimar in Germany. Postgraduate work followed at Lübeck and she has also taught at Hamburg Konservatorium, as well as here in Guangzhou.
"Dieter and I just happened to talk about it during a production of Otello in Lübeck last year and I told Dieter we have lots of great young singers in China but no opportunities for them to gain experience in practice in Europe. So this is a great opportunity for the young people and it's about encouraging them," says Bi.
In his student days, Kaegi led tours to China, so he is familiar with the food and the culture, though there have obviously been some changes. The ashtrays at every place setting haven't changed.
Just as some Eastern culture seems odd to Western eyes and ears, there are problems translating the Western opera culture to the east.
"It's difficult for Asians to enter the European art form of opera. Obviously, we have extremely successful artists, such as Yo-Yo Ma, where you never discuss their lack of European culture, but with singing there are so many layers," he says.
"I'm curious tomorrow to see how people stand there and present themselves.
"There is a huge market of fantastic voices, so you choose an actor who also physically presents himself," says Kaegi.
THE NEXT DAY we lunch down by the Pearl River with Yang Yan, head of the singing department and a well-known tenor. Yang was worried about whether the students would be good enough, whether they would be able to carry off a whole opera and learn a whole repertoire with such little experience.
Normally, the students learn two or three arias and some songs per semester.
His guests are more worried by the live snakes writhing in cages in an area near the kitchen, where guests choose the food they want to eat. The star of the show and the costliest delicacy on the menu is a crocodile, which rears up at anyone who dares to get close to him. His jaws are tied shut, but he is an alarming sight when he lurches upwards.
The auditions take place on the state-of-the-art campus. The air is sticky and hot outside, but the air in the auditorium is cool. Before the auditions there was a pre-selection process that narrowed the group down to around 30 singers, most of them between 18 and 21 years of age. Many have brought along friends for support.
THE FIRST UP is a graduate student called Huang Fuli, who is 26. She sings a Verdi aria for her piece, and Kaegi takes careful notes.
After the audition, she tells of how excited she is at the prospect of going abroad for the first time.
"I have many foreign friends and a very good friend of mine has an Irish boyfriend. We've all partied together in Paddy Field's Irish bar in Guangzhou so I know something about Ireland," says Huang.
Like many of the singers here at the conservatory, her parents' knowledge of Western opera extended no further than Placido Domingo and the late, great Pavarotti, but they have encouraged Huang in her love of singing and her passion for Verdi and all things Italian - she has learned the language, peppering her excellent English with occasional words of Italian, and checks every word in the libretto.
"The trip to Ireland is an opportunity for me to go abroad - my first chance to learn how opera is really done in the West. That's my real goal, because we don't have this culture in Guangzhou," says Huang, who comes from Shantou in Guangdong province.
Huang is one of those picked, but Kaegi says he really needs men for the chorus: he says it's a problem everywhere.
Baritone Zhai Xiaohang is one of the lucky men who make it. "I like Mozart, especially La Nozze di Figaro, because this opera is particular for the baritone. And to prepare we watch them on DVDs, learn from the great singers. Going to Ireland is my dream come true," he says.
Also heading to Dublin is Wei Jianjiang. "What I know about Ireland is Riverdance, it's very beautiful. I also really like the traditional tin whistle and the pipes," says Wei (20), who was born in the neighbouring economic boomtown of Shenzhen.
"I watch Verdi on DVD, it's very difficult to sing. I like his symphonies," he says.
MOST CHINESE PEOPLE are unaware of European opera growing up. Their parents sometimes like Chinese opera, such as Beijing opera, but it is often not on the radar for a young Chinese person. Most of the students either noticed they had a good voice themselves or were picked out by a helpful teacher, and for them to get as far as the conservatory is a huge achievement.
Altogether, 18 singers come through the process - six tenors, six baritones, three sopranos and three mezzo-sopranos. Kaegi offers the students a little bit of advice on how to do auditions. Don't just copy your resumé from the internet or your classmate - many of the male singers had the same CV in the same garbled English, all professing to be interested in "the life healthupwardly" and one candidate gives his blood group, for some reason.
Kaegi believes the singers will fit in well with the young chorus. Warren Mok from Hong Kong is playing Calaf, one of the principal characters in the opera,while the female leads were previous winners of the Veronica Dunne prize.
"Opera is the same all over the world. I've worked in Korea and the US and Europe. Once you're in it, it's the same thing, it's just the way you get there that's a little different. Once you get to Seattle or Seoul or Dublin it's the same," says Kaegi.
The singers can be seen this winter on alternate nights from November 15th to 25th. The company will present Turandot and the Irish premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at the Gaiety. Though don't expect any crocodiles.