Opera in Vietnam

Vietnamese opera appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the formation and development of Vietnamese vocal music in general and opera in particular only began in the second half of the 20th century. Over many years, Opera art in this country has achieved certain achievements. 

In the North with the Socialist path, many operas were composed, staged and performed alongside famous operas in the world. A team of artists and lecturers was gradually formed for professional vocal training. In the South under the government of the Republic of Vietnam, the appearance of opera in the teaching and training program and efforts to spread and compose opera from the North were also noted. 

In modern times, opera in Vietnam still faces many obstacles and problems in its development from composition, staging, performance to teaching. Investment in this form of art has not yet been paid attention. The Vietnamese people's physical condition cannot cope with simple opera, opera cannot stand up to the light music market, or difficulties in staging and composing costs to perform an opera are also problems. remarkable. In Indochina, the French colonial government was interested in the civilizing mission so it built three large theaters. Saigon Opera House was completed in 1897. Hai Phong Opera House was built in 1904 and inaugurated in 1912. When the French moved the capital to Hanoi in 1887, the largest theater was built there in 1901. , although it was not inaugurated until 1911. France made it the mission of the colonial country to build large theaters and sponsor their performance seasons, which involved signing contracts and inviting musical troupes from France to perform in the colonial country. 

Opera has appeared in Vietnam since the French colonial period through a number of performances at the Catholic Church and some theaters. During the 1860s and 1870s, Saigon had many French art performances, mainly ballet and opera sponsored by the Saigon government. The first Western classical opera performed in Saigon was Jacques Offenbach's Les deux aveugles, right when the French first arrived in Saigon in 1864. Every year, the city council specifies the budget and requirements. different for the performance season, and must also choose a director, who is responsible for inviting singers and musicians from France to perform. The operas were chosen "rather conservatively", but in 1894, 12 productions were acquired, including 7 new productions that had just been performed in Paris.

Since 1898, the Saigon city council required "at least 5 comedy operas and 5 operettas that had not been performed in Saigon in the past 3 years" or "famous works and recently premiered in France". . Initially, when there was no theater, these performances had to be temporarily performed at the admirals' palace near Dong Ho Square (today Dong Khoi intersection). In 1894, the new building that later became the Ho Chi Minh City Theater was built based on Eugène Ferret's design following the architectural style of the Third French Republic. In 1932, the opera troupe San Carlo Opera Company, which operated in the first half of the 20th century in the United States, performed a tour in the cities of Saigon and Hanoi. Although this troupe only performed an 8-day tour, it received "applauds" from the public. During the Indochina war, newspapers in Saigon often called art forms such as opera and cai luong "opera".

Because of the importance of the performing arts in European culture, French music and theater arrived in Hanoi almost parallel to colonial rule. Dramatic plays were gradually performed there in early 1884, and French performers who toured Asia soon began to make Hanoi a stop on their tours. 

Hanoi Opera House is also a large project that the French colonial government built in the early years of the 20th century. After completion, the theater was used as a place to perform classical Western arts. Western music such as chamber music and drama, including opera, mainly served the upper class of French mandarins and a few wealthy Vietnamese. Some operas performed at the Hanoi Opera House when it was first inaugurated in 1911 include some famous plays by Franz Lehár, Gustave Charpentier, Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod... 

During the period between the two world wars, the Indochina government no longer sponsored performances as before and had less interest, but opera continued to be performed until the Japanese coup d'état against France in East Asia. Positive.  Some classical European theater models were popularized in the late 1950s and 1960s through Russia's Evgeny Onegin and North Korea's Let the Mountains Speak. However, the presence of opera in this country appeared earlier in the early 20th century, including choir activities in Catholic churches and performing arts in some major theaters.

Vietnamese opera is considered a product of Vietnamese people, absorbed from the quintessence of music in general and opera art in particular from Europe on the basis of traditional music. With the first musical play "Tuc Luu" composed in 1943 by Luu Huu Phuoc, opera and musical scenes developed more abundantly during the Indochina War and Vietnam War and influenced the birth of Vietnamese opera. 

In addition, the qualifications of the performers and the viewing public were also factors that could not satisfy the birth of opera during this period. In order for the pure Vietnamese opera genre to be born, the Vietnamese music industry must have all the factors such as the level of the composer, the level of the performers, and even the level of music enjoyment of Vietnamese people. audiences. It was not until the Vietnam War that the country's music industry met the elements for the birth of opera art. After a long time, opera art composed by Vietnamese people has achieved certain achievements. Many operas are written, staged and performed alongside famous operas around the world. This helps to form a larger pool of performers and instructors for professional vocal training. 

However, since Vietnam went through two major wars, the new music scene gradually shifted towards theater, causing opera compositions to almost disappear for a long time. The reason is said to be due to changing socio-historical circumstances leading to changes in creative perspectives. Another reason also pointed out is that investing in opera is very expensive because of the "massive" nature of a performance. After North Vietnam gained power in 1954, the performance of spoken plays, operas, operas, tuongs, cheo, and cai luong was an additional source of impetus for opera performance in Vietnam. 

Performance activities are also shown in international cooperation programs. Performances of foreign operas have created more motivation for Vietnamese singers and musicians in the art of opera. In 1961, the Central People's Song and Dance Troupe, together with the Vietnam School of Music and the Voice of Vietnam Symphony Orchestra, with the help of a Soviet vocal expert, produced and performed Tchaikovsky's opera Evgeni Onegin. . In 1964, the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet Theater performed the play "Let the Mountains Speak Out" by North Korea. Onegin is performed by Quy Duong and Gremil is performed by Tran Hieu, in addition to Ngoc Dau, Tran Chat and many others participating. This is considered the first step of Vietnamese integration into opera art, and becomes the premise for the long-term strategic process of building opera art. In addition, many other plays were staged and performed but not recorded, so there are no remaining documents to this day. 

During the fierce Vietnam War, there was an attempt from North Vietnam to spread opera to the South but faced many difficulties in terms of conditions and means to stage an opera. The opera recorded to be born in this situation is Hoang Viet's Lotus, composed in 1967, shortly before his death in battle. Although it was performed, Lotus was transformed from the opera genre to a small musical form to serve the arts. After the events of April 30, 1975, the southern region of Vietnam adopted culture and scholarly music from the North. The unification of the North and South of Vietnam and the Doi Moi policy have also led to the revival of Western opera in Hanoi, including the event of a French cultural dissemination organization called Alliance française Tai Tai. 14 million USD support for the restoration of Hanoi Opera House. 

In 1978, French-Vietnamese composer Nguyen Thien Dao composed an opera titled My Chau - Trong Thuy, marking his own reputation in the field of contemporary classical music in the world. This is considered the first Vietnamese musical to be known to the world as a work "bringing a unique national voice and new methods of expression". By the 1990s, Vietnamese opera was performed to the public thanks to the support of international organizations such as Sweden and the British Council... but at this time, pure Vietnamese operas did not seem to appear. Currently, there are only foreign works. In the context of traditional music and scholarly music being outnumbered by young music, opera is only staged "sporadicly" with symphonies and choruses. 

Vietnam still does not have favorable opportunities for opera to develop. Therefore, composing and performing opera has become a "luxury" in Vietnam, making this type almost absent. In order for opera to develop in this country, a number of competitions have been organized but it is considered that they are still not very effective. According to a source from the Hanoi Music Association, staging a musical in Vietnam is "a big challenge", requiring investment in expertise, human resources, funding and time. long time and must ensure 3 basic issues: Content (staged work), Performance and Organization. European directors have made artistic innovations in the process of staging the world's classic opera works at. 

Vietnam today, bringing this art form closer to the reception of modern Vietnamese audiences, while still popularizing the artistic values ​​of this musical genre. On the contrary, in stage production, opera's staging style was also proposed by a study to be exploited to apply to this country's traditional art form such as cheo. With open cultural exchange, Many international artists and conductors have come to Vietnam to work with the Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with Vietnamese artists in cross-Vietnam performance programs.

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