Music bridges differences between cultures Opera music can bring Eastern, Western cultures closer

One of the most popular rock bands in the US, One Republic, staged CMG's Chinese New Year Gala for the Year of the Snake on Jan 28, stirring up warm musical rendezvous. As the great poet in the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai, composed in his poetic work, Bidding Farewell to Meng Haoran at the Yellow Crane Tower: all I see is the Yangtze River flowing to the far horizon. The rock band's song Counting Stars for the gala displayed on the stage screen the Yellow Crane Tower, which stands atop Snake Mountain in Wuhan, Hubei province.

Back in 2023, the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted a performance at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its historic 1973 Tour of China as the first foreign visiting orchestra since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

A Chinese and Peruvian joint musical performance, adapted from the original Shanxi folk song in China and Peruvian folk music, was also screened at CMG's Chinese New Year Gala on Jan 28. The singers, Zhou Shen from China and Diego from Peru, focused on illustrating the China-Peru stories interactively with music.

Moreover, the NCPA production of Verdi's opera returned in December 2023 to mark the 210th birth anniversary of the Italian composer Verdi and the 170th anniversary of the Western classic La Traviata's premiere. Under the baton of Yu Long, Italian-Russian soprano Ekaterina Bakanova starred in the title role of Violetta, alongside tenor Shi Yijie, baritone Liao Changyong, and other artists, reviving care, respect and love in humanity.

Music, as a universal language, has the power to connect and bridge differences between cultures. Since operatic music serves as a prominent form of arts in the West, people are primed to naturally follow and further music's function and commitment to people-to-people exchange.

What music can showcase is something more than the artists' incredibly high and wide vocal range, magnetic metal-like voice, and musical style that combines genres such as opera, folk, rock and roll, as well as the atmosphere of musical instruments. The most apparent outcome music can achieve is the sharing and understanding of cultures. From this perspective, to be present at a foreign musical performance is to learn to understand another culture.

What is also worth mentioning is Nessun Dorma from Giacomo Puccini's ever-lasting tune Turandot, an opera that describes an imaginary Chinese story in Westerners' eyes, with some of the tune based on the traditional Chinese folk song Jasmin. Another melody is Das Land des LacheIns, composed by Franz Lehár, whose setting took place in Vienna and China in 1912 and presents a winding love story of separation due to cultural differences, with the prince Sou-Chong eventually pursuing his custom: always smiling.

Both operas displayed how the Western world tried to imagine, experience and illustrate the mysterious "Oriental" place, China, with the language of music. In the meantime, the audience touched a corner of the Chinese image and was therefore endowed with a landscape of the Chinese culture with regards to the volume of its diversification.

Apart from the above China stories told by foreign composers, there are a series of traditional Chinese cultural elements, essence, or stories that can be staged and delivered through opera, since they combine music, chanting and drama. Therefore, for cross-cultural communication, they can spread Chinese culture to the world through operatic music.

The Phoenix Returns Home, The Mountain and Flowing Water, Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Mansions, Mulan, Farewell to My Concubine, and The Butterfly Lovers, etc. are all masterpieces of traditional Chinese cultural heritage that have interested foreign readers or audiences a lot. If the works are adapted and composed in terms of the art form of opera in foreign languages, the Western world will better understand China stories that are delivered in operatic music language, with which the Westerners feel more familiar.

Music can be the key to transcending cultural differences by tapping the key qualities of humanity: care, respect and love, and by building the people-to-people bridge between cultures. Whenever music starts playing, the distance between true friends melts as they feel close even when they are thousands of kilometers apart.

As music is a healing hand that cures sometimes, offers relief often, and comforts always, it serves as an important gateway and connecting point to bridge and melt differences between cultures. Music, which has gradually developed a highly expressive performance style encompassing voice, tune, instruments, and stories, usually has a long, nourishing cultural touring journey, connecting people throughout the world through music by narrating the stories across the globe.

The author is an associate professor at Guangzhou Maritime University, and a research committee member in Foreign Discourse Section of Translators Association of China.

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