Korea National Opera – Soul Mate by June Hee Lim. October 31, 2015.

Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre.  Stalls 2 (Seat S23, HK$315.)

Story.  For economic and political reasons, Mongwan and Seohyang are arranged to be married by their parents.  Neither wants to do so without love, so they switch places with their assistants Seodong and Ippuni to spy on the other person.  The two pairs end up falling in love with one another.  After their parents (who do not know of the new development) tear up the marriage contract, the two couples decide to elope.  Things are sorted out eventually and the two couples are married.

Conductor – Docki Kim.  Seohyang – Whal Ran Seo, Mongwan – Seung Mook Lee, Ippuni – Hyon Lee, Seodong – Dae San Noh.

Scala Opera Chorus: Byung Wook Lim – Conductor.

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are quite a few sopranos of Korean descent in the Metropolitan Opera, and some of them have taken on major roles (such as Gilda in Rigoletto.)  Many of these singers have been trained in Korea, so in my way of thinking Korea National Opera must be of certain standing.  Even though I had no idea what this opera would sound like, I was quite ready to give the performance a go, at a (discounted) price of about US$40 per ticket.

Poster advertisement for the opera found inside an MTR walkway.

Curtain call.

I wasn’t disappointed.  Actually I enjoyed the performance very much.

The set is very simple, in the center is a multi-level stage which rotates (it did so only during the last act to simulate movement of a ship.)  Props are dropped and raised as necessary to create the necessary sceneries, and projections on the backdrop show a moving moon and falling leaves.

The story is simple.  Indeed the synopsis of each half was first projected onto the displays on the two sides, and it is even simpler than what I summarize above.  As there is this “symmetry” between the major characters, and between the two families, many lines got used twice, and some got used four times.  Even though I am not good with Korean names, I had little trouble following the story.  And it is interesting to note all the names have meaningful Chinese translations.  Ippuni means “young beautiful girl” and Seodong means “book attendant.”

As a rule, there is chorus singing and dancing at the beginning and end of each act.  The artists are dressed in Korean costumes, the singing is great, and the movements are well-choreographed.  You wonder how much shorter the opera would be if those elements are eliminated.  At the end there was this interminable sequence of verses that made me feel things were dragging on for the first time.  With all that the opera runs about two hours.

To my ears, the music is mostly western with some foreign (which I assume to be Korean) elements thrown in.  It is generally tonal, easy to get, and sounded simple enough.  I could recognize most of the instruments and attributed the new sounds as coming from Korean instruments (flute and percussion; the Program has a listing of them.)  At times I felt like I was in a Broadway show.  At other times I felt like I was watching Lakmi when the two ladies sang a song that began like the “Flower Duet.”  Yet other moments reminded me of Madama Butterfly.

I suppose music critics have a lot to say about all that, and I could probably make a few more pretentious statements about the merits of the opera.  That would detract from the gut-level appeal it has for me, and that includes the simple story.

What is unquestionable is the quality of the singing, which was uniformly excellent.  I don’t know Korean, but with the aid of the projected subtitles, it was easy to follow the story along.  Taken as a whole the story is pedestrian, but taken one aria at a time there were many poignant moments where one could get caught up in the moment.

The orchestra and the conductor were generally hidden from view where we sat.  I thought the sound coming from the pit was great.  With the many “distractions” from the vocal singing, dancing, and scenery changes, I didn’t get to pay lot of attention to how the orchestral music sounded.

The word “grand” wouldn’t be used if I were to give the auditorium a name (it holds 1734 seats per Wikipedia.)  The seats are comfortable, the acoustics generally good, but the stage seems a bit small.  Having the subtitles projected onto the two sides of the stage proved somewhat distracting for me.  This was the first time we attended an event there, if memory serves.

We had a light snack with some Hope International folks before the opera, and most shops were closed when we got out (Hong Kong is overrated as an all-night city.)  We did manage to find something to eat (McDonalds and dim sum) at the Tai Po MTR station at around 11 pm.