Guoguang Opera Company, a National Cultural Treasure

In the end of 2010, Beijing opera was listed by UNESC as an intangible heritage of humanity. For the ROC centenary, Guoguang Opera Company (Guoguang) produced a new opera “One Hundred Year-old Theater” to lead the audience in the appreciation of the hundred years of history of development of Beijing opera. These two events seemingly correspond to the introduction of Guoguang, “Plays circulate in history and parade across the years. Beijing opera is a fusion of strengths of various opera styles and has become an important treasure of contemporary cultural assets after two centuries of blending.” Nevertheless, Beijing opera as a treasure, on the stages and in the reality of Taiwan, was once inundated in the ideology of tradition and locality and even lost its luster. 

The history of Guoguang can be traced back to when the ROC government retreated to Taiwan. The opera performing team in the military that was in charge of art and cultural tasks adopted and revised new materials from Taiwanese folk literature and legends into Beijing opera, resulting in the Taiwan Trilogy “Matsu,” “Zheng Cheng-gong and Taiwan” and “Liao Tian-ding” in an attempt to be close to the local. However, these plays maintained their moral teachings, making them not intimate enough with real life. Through Guoguang’s continuous exploration and trials, the audience’ thinking was changed over time. “In the past, the audience was concerned with the acoustic appeal. After the Taiwan Trilogy, Guoguang broke off from traditional topics of Beijing opera and the direction of criticism changed along with it. People started talking about what these performing art workers were presenting through their creations,” said Zhang Yu-hua, chief of the Research & Promotion Section of Guoguang.

In 2002, when the Director of Art Wang An-qi joined the company, it was as though Guoguang was putting on a new brain with artistic vision. In the original well-structured mechanism, Wang’s artistic ideals can be applied effectively and found a heart-touching power in theatres. Zhang Yu-hua mentioned that, “Director Wang is good at expressing with new creations. Only the combination of sense and sensibility in the story can communicate with the audience emotionally. He is also able to interpret the value of traditional culture in a modern perspective.” Finally, Guoguang has found a way to show their brilliance and launched the masterpieces such as “The Golden Lock” and “Meng Xiaodong.” In March 2008, Guoguang came under the aegis of the Preparatory Office of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts under the Council for Cultural Affairs. In 2010, Guoguang not only endeavored in the sustainable operation of traditional plays and continuously promote both traditional and new productions, but also cooperated with the College of Broadcast, Television, and Film of Shih Hsin University with respect to digital archiving to re-present the charm of Beijing opera on a digital platform. 

Guoguang has found a way to show their brilliance and launched the masterpieces such as “The Golden Lock” and “Meng Xiaodong”.

 “The Phoenix Hairpin”, singing a Traditional Classic

Zhang Yu-Hua, the researcher and chief of the research on business promotion section of Guoguang, was once a Beijing opera performer (graduated from Fu-Hsing Chinese Opera School). She showed up right on the first day of the founding of Guoguang. “Back then coincidentally Guoguang was being established and needed personnel who have had Beijing opera background and obtained master’s degrees. It was a rare opportunity.”

Once being moved to tears after watching a play, she believes that traditional plays can give people very real feelings. She also understands that the feelings actors conveyed directly to audience in the theatre may not always be transmitted through television or computers. If the feelings harbored in Beijing opera are to enter the life of modern people, the transmission must be re-processed. Therefore, Guoguang promoted traditional plays in all places, from the National Theatre to outdoor stages by temples, to ensure that the public can get to know traditional plays anywhere they are. Now they even pull fiber optic cable into every household and start performing. “We are very conscious about developing new audience, especially among the young age groups. Since 2003, Guoguang has actively conducting promotion on campuses, but not always with a performance. Lectures require a lot of information on techniques for the public to read. When preparing such materials, we are also processing information from the past. We slowly learned how to communicate with the outside world. We also combined with study programs at schools and discussed with teachers on how to write lesson plans, which yielded great results.” Regarding expansion, Zhang told us about her own experience with promotion. Now, besides reorganizing and sorting information on past campus promotion activities, she also has set up Metadata for all the repertoire and edited films to present brilliant scenes in response to the demand of digital platform users.

“The Phoenix Hairpin” is a play depicting the love story about Lu You and Tang Wan that leaves grudges for thousands of years.  

Sorting and classifying  Old Information Most important

The seed had long been sowed for the opportunity for the cooperation between Shih Hsin University and Guoguang with regards to digital archiving. In 2009, for the students to receive  multi-cultural stimulation to enhance the humanities education in the university, Shih Hsin invited resident scholars, among them was Beijing Opera star Wei Hai-ming of Guoguang. The digital archives program director, Nelson Tsai, observed the feasibility in this contact. “Regarding digital archiving of culture and arts, I started paying attention a long time ago. I had browsed projects from the past and seen the digital archives of many performing arts groups, such as Cloud Gate Dance Foundation and Utheatre while there was a lack in Beijing opera.” Later on, at a dinner for Shih Hsin and Guoguang, Tsai showed his interest in applying for a Guoguang digital archives project to the principal. Chung Bao-Shan, Deputy Head of Guoguang gave consent. Since then, all the great shows of Guoguang can be watched on the Internet. 

Pinpointing the school’s strengths and resources, Tsai hopes to have a firm grasp on the trend of digitalization. “Many digital archives have dissatisfactory image quality due to the video processing. Considering the current technologies, HD is definitely the trend of development. We hope to use the highest standards available to archive Guoguang.” For performances in the past that were not filmed with high quality, he said that the planning team would go and record it when the old plays were performed again and the great scenes would be broadcasted after editing. “At present, we also have interviews with the Art Director Wang An-qi. We will be more than happy to interview the star performers if there is an opportunity in the future because, for the purpose of marketing, they are most effective in attracting the audience.” For tidbits both onstage and offstage, Tsai has made comprehensive plans for Guoguang. (Diagram：Nelson Tsai uses the highest standards s currently available to archive Guoguang.)

Being engaged in digital archiving for a long time, Tsai is very concerned about the systematic use of it. “Digital archiving in early days was scanning literatures or digitizing them in other ways. It is comparable to unsorted resources in a metropolitan.” On this matter, he repeatedly emphasized that it is not just archiving but the most important concept is to arrange and classify information. Take the cultural and creative industries for example, perhaps for most of the people it is a distant term. Yet in fact most of the innovations come from existing material. It is like pouring old wine into new bottles, repackaging and marketing. Completing a systematic organization and classification for Guoguang is to ferment  the traditional classic so they are even more fragrant. In the future, if applied to theatrical workshops, lecture demonstrations, or other value-added services, it would come smooth and handy.

Diagram：Nelson Tsai uses the highest  standards to archive Guoguang.