Review - Madame White Snake (Long), 2019 Hong Kong Arts Festival

Madame White Snake - Susannah Biller
Xiao Qing - Michael Maniaci
Xu Xian - Peter Tantsits
Abbot - Gong Dongjian

The Hong Kong Arts Festival Chorus
Hong Kong Children's Choir
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Lan Shui (conductor)
Michael Counts (director)

For the second year, the arts festival continued the western opera adaptation of a well know Chinese Opera libretto. In terms of staging and technological employment, this production of Madame White Snake was more sophisticated than last year grandiose attempt of The Dream of the Red chamber.

The highlights include a projected white snake lurking on an umbrella opened by Madame White Snake after meeting up her lover Xu Xian for the first time. Her transformation between between human and snake prior to Xu Xian confrontation with drugs was also beautifully portrayed. The projection of a mountain scene with falling snow was vividly displayed. The epilogue would have been a success in conjuring a stormy scene, but the choreography failed to demonstrate the intense battle between the abbot and Madame White Snake. There was also an awkward moment when Madame White Snake struggled to wear her wedding dress on stage and left me bewildered what was going on.

Musically it was a mixed affair which the first half showed much composition interest. Despite an exciting parts for the orchestra, I thought the vocal effect during the first quarrel between the abbot and Madame White Snake was rather silly. The Puccini like music passage in the fourth act felt less attractive probably due to the lack of dynamic contrast. Even so, the tender lyric coda made a moving end to an intense evening.

Biller took some time to warm up her voice as the her timbre felt rather coarse at first. Though as her vocal body became fuller and more legato, the singing excelled as the evening went. Maniaci carried a good vocal projection as countertenor but I found his diction style rather cloudy, especially not very clear with the articulation in consonants. Perhaps due to the theatre dry acoustic and positioning in the pit, the diction of festival chorus was not clear too and also sometimes underweight while singing against the orchestra. The choir also had a difficult job to read the music in mostly very dim environment. The positioning of the children's choir before the pit was therefore more ideal with the benefit of more refreshing parts to sing. Members of the philharmonic orchestra under the direction of Lan Shui did an excellent job to keep the music momentum and energy going.