An Aria "Jixianbin" from Kunqu Opera 昆曲, Palace of Lasting Life 长生殿 酒楼(Peng Xu 徐芃 as Guo Ziyi郭子儀)

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Hello, everyone! I am a scholar of Chinese drama and theater. I hope this brief introduction helps you better understand my rendition of this beautiful aria of kunqu opera, a genre of music that boasts of having four hundred years of history.

The sound file is a result of a deeply satisfying collaborative undertaking, a delightful encounter between me and a superb flutist, Professor Daniel C.F. Chan 陳傳芳, an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver. Almost twenty years ago I became a member of the Beijing Learned Society of Kunqu Opera北京崑曲研習社 and studied under great amateur artists such as Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍 (1914-2003), Zhu Fu 朱復(1945-) and Yang Min 楊忞. I take great pride in my seven-year sojourn in Beijing (1995-2002) as a diligent student of the laosheng 老生 or dignified male role. The current aria from the seventeenth-century play The Palace of Lasting Life 長生殿 (completed in 1688), sung by an eighth-century patriotic military figure Guo Ziyi 郭子儀, was the first aria I learned in my modest repertoire. Twenty years have passed since I first sang it in Beijing. Only on 20 October 2016 when Daniel showed me his excellent skills in accompanying kunqu singers was my passion in the role of Guo Ziyi rekindled. He pleaded, and I agreed to sing this aria. The recording can only be seen as a work of joint effort to bring the young, ambitious character’s voice back to life.

The young Guo Ziyi is a low-rank military officer. Despite his low status, however, he sees a crisis derived from the deep corruption of the Tang society and astutely predicts the collapse of the state in the near future. In this aria, he portrays himself as a hero well-prepared for and destined to salvage the to-be-toppled dynasty. It is Guo Ziyi that, in the later scenes of the play, commands the Tang military force and defeats the barbarian troupes led by An Lushan.

The late instructor of kunqu vocal music in the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Traditional Chinese Drama 江蘇戲曲學校, Mr. Wang Zhenglai 王正來 (1948-2003), felt that the essential syllable that a singer should stress in singing is the one next to the last syllable in the aria, qiao 樵. My experience in the Beijing circle of kunqu singers has enabled me to cultivate a different musical sensibility in the Beijing tradition (somehow related to the Manchu court) of singing that emphasizes instead the second syllable in the second line, kong 空.

Lyrics：

【集賢賓】論男兒壯懷須自吐，肯空向杞天呼？笑他每似堂間處燕，有誰能屋上瞻烏？不提防柙虎樊熊，任縱橫社鼠城狐。幾回價聽鷄鳴，起身獨夜舞。想古來多少乘除，顯得個勳名垂宇宙，不爭便姓字老樵漁。