This two-in-one CD album set produced by Bernard Kleikamp and project-directed by Zhang Xingrong is, to my knowledge, the only English language recording available on Chinese minority opera and stands as a major contribution to the documentation and study of Chinese minority opera and song traditions. The focus of these two recordings is on the opera traditions of the Bai and Dai, located in the western region of Yunnan in Southwest China.

The recordings are part of the Pan Records’ Ethnic Series, Anthology of Music in China collection. They are also the fruit of a long and productive partnership between ethnomusicologists, Zhang Xingrong and Helen Rees, with the addition of Ito Satoru for these two albums. Other works contributed to this series by Zhang Xingrong and Li Wei, with the assistance of Helen Rees, include the albums Alili (2004) and Nanwoka (2005).

The recordings are of excellent quality, with separate and thoroughly researched liner notes included as a PDF file on each CD. The liner notes have a wealth of information which includes: an introduction to the culture and language of the Bai and Dai minority; the historical development of the respective opera traditions; an introduction to key musicians, directors, composers, and playwrights who shaped the tradition, particularly of twentieth century developments; synopses of all the operas featured; descriptions of each track, the narrative context of the excerpt and the characters being portrayed, as well as lyrical content; and photographs throughout of featured performers.

The set is a fascinating juxtaposition of neighbouring Bai and Dai minority opera traditions. The albums contain material of both newer and older forms of each opera tradition, documenting co-existent state-supported as well as local village traditions, both of which employ unique mixtures of local song forms as well as influences from local Han opera, and also to an extent, the influence of China’s model opera or yangbanxi (样板戏), popular during the Cultural Revolution, with its inherent Western influences.

Bai opera is an amalgam of two older vocal forms: the theatrical form chuichuichang (吹吹腔) and the storytelling genre dabenqu (大本曲). There have been records of Bai vocal music accompanied by the double-reed suona and percussion since the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the establishment of chuichuiqiang in the Dali region was widespread from the mid-nineteenth century, having picked up influences from dianju (滇剧), local Yunnanese Han opera, by the end of the century. In its state-supported form which developed from the mid 1950s, Bai opera follows many of the conventions of Han opera, with its use of Bai-inflected Chinese and Han Chinese instruments in its accompaniment. And yet, its uniqueness as a local opera tradition is unmistakable, especially with reference to its poetic structure and text setting, with most words set to only one or two pitches, in contrast with the long melismas found in Han opera traditions. Bai opera narratives are unique in their locality and historical setting, such as can be seen in the opera Cloud yearning for her husband (tracks 1–4) set in the time of Dali’s Nanzhao kingdom (738–937 A.D.). The excerpts included in the album also make frequent reference to Erhai lake and Cangshan mountain (tracks 4, 5, 12), which are closely tied to Bai identity.

The Dai opera album gives witness to the development of a nearby and yet very different opera tradition, owing to the linguistic, religious, and historical distinctions between the two groups. The Dai are a Tai-speaking people, widely known as the Tai Nüa. They live mainly in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefectures and espouse Theravada Buddhism. Zhang documents three phases of historical development of Dai opera, with the first being a mixture of sung Buddhist poems and scriptures, combined with folk songs, shamanic and other dances, and later incorporating the influences of Han opera and shadow puppetry (1821 to 1856); the second (1856 to 1960) witnessed large influences from dianju, the adoption of Dai-centred dramas, still featuring unaccompanied singing with percussion passages; the third phase, from 1960 to the present, was led by the state-sponsored professional Dai opera troupes. During this third phase, the troupes formalised the male and female character types (khaam kun and khaam laang), employed greater use of solo/chorus singing, and expanded the accompaniment ensemble to include Han Chinese and Western string and wind instruments.

The Dai excerpts are truly unique within traditional opera repertoire in China as much of the singing retains the vocal qualities of Dai folksongs: with rhythms that emphasise the cadence of the Dai language, employing a more nasal, forward, and slender head voice quality for their vowels, the prolongation of consonants, and use of frequent short tonal slides in their mono and bi-syllabic text settings. The use of their emblematic gourd free-reed pipe pi lam taw, popularly known among Han Chinese as the hulusi (葫芦丝), is featured in “Peaceful Night” (track 3). The excerpt of the Dai opera troupe of Nongmo village (track 16) is an interesting example of a more traditional style of Dai opera that employs a narrow melodic range and percussion interludes featuring a striking low-high combination of drums, cymbals and chimes.

Unavoidably, what is lost in the medium of audio-recording of an opera tradition is the opportunity to observe the other artistic disciplines within opera that cannot be captured with the microphone, such as staging, dance, gestures, and costumes. While the liner notes did much to overcome this limitation, the listener is naturally desirous to know more about these aspects of the opera traditions.

I recently attended a series of lectures delivered by Nancy Yunhwa Rao at the University of British Columbia, during which time I saw many archival documents that gave witness to the plurality of opera narratives that were being performed in Cantonese opera in North America in the 1920s and 30s. That experience, as well as the activity of reviewing this recording has impressed on me the powerful creative energy of local artists and troupes, and the degree of localisation and diversity found in regional opera traditions of China both among the Han Chinese and now, as witnessed in these two recordings, among the Southwest minorities of China.