On Saturday, 6 November at 4pm Bangkok time, The Siam Society is presenting a free public talk on The Relevance of Opera in Contemporary Thailand.
The Thammasat University Library owns many books about different aspects of the art of opera around the world.
The speakers will be Tarin Prinyaknit, a stage director, and Voraprach Wongsathapornpat, a conductor who last year collaborated on a production of Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera The Elixir of Love in Bangkok.
To make the story from Italy in the 1800s more relevant to Thai audiences today, the production was set in a shopping mall in Bangkok today.
This change underlined the consumer habits, capitalism and social inequality of the capitol.
Khun Tarin and Khun Voraprach are planning a new production of the comic short opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini.
These operas and many others may be seen on DVD or heard on CD at the Rewat Buddhinan Audiovisual Center on the U2 level of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.
To participate in the free online event, students may watch the live transmission on The Siam Society Facebook and YouTube pages.
Scholarly research has been done about opera in Thailand, including a Ph.D. thesis published earlier this year,
The Emergence of Thai Opera: Performance as Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fueanglada Organ Prawang. This doctoral dissertation in music, awarded in April by Bangor University, a public university in Bangor, Wales, the United Kingdom, has the following abstract:
Since the turn of the twenty-first century there has been a small but significant number of operas written by Thai composers or those who identify as being Thai. Most of these Thai operas are based on Thai mythology or histories. The majority of the librettos are in English, with the remainder being in Thai. The music is largely Western in style, looking back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though often incorporating traditional Thai melodies.
This thesis is the first to examine this emerging repertoire of Thai operas. Despite being culturally and musically significant, these works have received scant scholarly attention. This thesis compiles what is known of these works and situates them in their context(s). It offers insights to the development of the genre from its origins: from translations of Western works by King Rama VI in the early twentieth century through to the in-progress Wagner-inspired cycle of Somtow Sucharitkul.
Twenty Thai operas are discussed in this thesis; five unperformed. Of the remaining fifteen, only three are in Thai, with the remainder in English. Much of this research results from fieldwork and interviews with 48 composers and musicians involved in creating and staging these works. Therefore, this is a new area of research. Some of these musicians are elderly or in poor health, making the gathering of information on their first-hand experiences timely. Further insights were derived from the author’s professional experience(s) as an opera singer born and educated in Thailand, with experience of performing both Western and Thai operas.
Findings suggest that although socio-culturally and politically-significant, Thai operas are little-known both in Thailand and beyond. As a result, the genre faces challenges in performance and reception. Five key challenges (and barriers) emerge: (1) culture; (2) politics; (3) popularity; (4) religion; (5) language. Arguably the biggest challenge is for Thai opera to be fully embraced as a ‘Thai’ genre, especially given that the Thai language is often avoided by composers. The reason being that Thai is a tonal language and its words can have multiple meanings depending on how they’re pronounced tonally. Non-Thai speakers struggle with Thai because of the tonal nature: when it is sung according to Western notation the text is often rendered unintelligible to native speakers. Many of the composers turned to English for libretti, which arguably renders the genre neither Thai nor Western, instead falling between the two stools. If there is a way to resolve this issue of singing opera in Thai, and avoid having to use other languages, it would be a step towards Thai language opera becoming a national treasure. Thai is as compatible as any other language in terms of its melodic quality, provided it is sung correctly to avoid mispronunciations due to its tonal nature. This leads to the experiment in chapter 5, which has resulted in expanding the Western notation by adding new symbols. Three simple symbols were created to help the conductor understand where the singers slow the tempo to slide the note to fit the meaning of the words. Non-Thai-speaking singers could sing and imitate native Thai speakers using this method. The experiment addresses the problem of Thai’s tonal nature and opens up Thai to become as successfully performed in operas as other languages.
By foregrounding Thai opera this thesis has two main aspirations: (1) to become a vital resource for Thai composers and performers; (2) to increase awareness of this cultural interaction in the West. There are many young Thai composers who want to create operas in Thai but have no examples for inspiration; this thesis will explain the challenges of performing operas in Thailand. It is important for non-musicians to recognise that a national style of Thai opera exists in Thailand. This research has explored why opera in Thai has been challenging for composers and performers. The solution is to translate key elements of the Thai language into Western notation, which allows non-Thai speakers to work with operas in Thai, thus potentially opening up the genre to international singers. Performing these music dramas in schools can help children to develop their confidence and concentration. Moreover, these operas could be an effective way to teach children about important moral and historical lessons from Thai culture.
Students who are interested may download and read the thesis at this link.
The Introduction to the thesis begins as follows:
‘What is Thai Opera?’ Music in Thailand today reflects a mixture of multicultural influences especially with Western music; it plays an important part in Thai society. Thailand has accepted all aspects of Western music with no boundaries and it has spread everywhere in locals’ daily lives. With its origins in the early decades of the twentieth century, since around the turn of the present century Thai opera has emerged as a culturally and musically significant meeting of Western and Thai influences. It has, however, to date received no detailed scholarly enquiry. This thesis defines Thai opera as: musico-dramatic works written primarily in a Western musical style but using traditional mythologies, characters, instruments, melodies and Thai language in different combinations and context. Thai opera has its origins in the early twentieth century, but mainly developed in the current century. Nevertheless, most Thai people are unaware of this small but significant genre. Indeed, in Thailand the term would probably be most associated with the native Likay: a traditional drama similar in some respects to Western opera. This is the understanding of Thai people who are not familiar with Western opera, therefore, they attempt to compare a Thai drama that tells a story by singing to a Western opera, which on the surface does the same. There are more similarities, such as singers dress up according to their role and they act in an exaggerated manner. However, the truth is that the basis of singing is totally different to Western opera, and Likay has no fixed notation, instead relying on improvisation on the stage Likay was also not inspired by Western opera. These are two completely different cultural and musical styles. Therefore, the definition of Thai opera as being Likay, is just a comparison. Later, Thai opera which uses Western opera patterns was established in 1910 when King Rama VI translated Mikado from English into Thai. Given the lack of awareness, it is of little surprise that Thai opera has received minimal scholarly attention…
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)