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Chinese contemporary composer Qigang Chen describes himself as "a Chinese tree replanted in France." His piano solo work Instants d'un Opéra de Pékin presents both Eastern and Western elements equally. While the main motives and melodic ideas are based on Chinese modes and scales, Chen incorporates many Western compositional techniques, particularly those of Olivier Messiaen, such as fragmentation and elimination, rhythmic augmentation and diminution, octave displacement among others. In this dissertation, I review the historical development of Peking Opera. Through the musical examples, I also illustrate the incorporation of two fundamentally different musical backgrounds and compositional styles that interact, express, and present themselves as equally relevant in both Eastern and Western musical language.

This thesis represents an analysis of symbolic expressions used to convey traditional Chinese cultural values in marital relations as expressed through costumes and lyrics in Peking Opera plays and performances. Two symbols, dragon and phoenix, were selected from the costume collection. Four symbols--bird, tiger, wild goose, and dragon--were selected from compilations of lyrics. These symbols were selected because they expressed Chinese core cultural values, an imperial ideology based on Confucian thoughts, which were practiced rigidly during Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Modeling Theory is applied to argue that dragon and phoenix as visual symbols convey ideas about characters' background, marital relationship, social status shifts, and socio-culturally desirable values. Social Drama Theory is employed to analyze the lyrics to understand how ideal images of husband and wife are constructed. The archetypes of Chinese traditional culture that have influenced Chinese thought and action for centuries are discovered and discussed.

Cette étude se propose d’examiner les questions que soulève l'opéra de Pékin contemporain de Taïwan à travers deux exemples : Le Roi Lear mis en scène par Wu Hsing-Kuo et Orlando mis en scène par Robert Wilson. Ces deux spectacles en solo sont fondés sur des textes occidentaux traduits en chinois. Pour mettre en scène ces textes traduits, Wu Hsing-Kuo et Robert Wilson ont eu recours aux conventions et au jeu de l’acteur de l’opéra de Pékin. En dépit d’éléments similaires, les textes scéniques tissés par ces deux metteurs en scène diffèrent profondément. Dans le but de trouver une manière appropriée de décrire et d’analyser ce genre de spectacles métis qui sortent de leur cadre traditionnel, tout en gardant en même temps certains traits spécifiques, nous avons commencé par creuser les conceptions qui sous-tendent la forme de l’opéra chinois. Ensuite, nous avons approfondi les questions liées à la pratique ainsi que ses rapports avec les conceptions esthétiques chinoises. Dans la dernière partie de cette étude, nous nous appuyons essentiellement sur les conceptions développées dans les deux premières parties de cette thèse plutôt que sur les discussions sur la nature du théâtre interculturel pour les chercheurs occidentaux auxquelles se sont déjà référés beaucoup de chercheurs taïwanais. À travers l’analyse des deux spectacles, nous proposons une voie différente pour discuter des représentations « interculturelles », tels que les spectacles de l’opéra de Pékin contemporain de Taïwan, qui échappent aux règles et aux conventions bien établies et qui ne peuvent être jugés selon les standards habituels. / This thesis aims to examine the questions suggested by two contemporary Peking opera productions in Taiwan: “King Lear” directed by Wu Hsing-Kuo and “Orlando” by Robert Wilson. These two adaptations are both based on Western masterpieces and each of them is performed by one trained Peking opera actor. Despite the similarities that appear in the works of the Taiwanese and the American director, the results of their experimentations on the stage differ considerably between each other. In order to find appropriate way to describe and analyze this kind of performances based on the fusion of traditional as well as foreign elements, we started by researching the conceptions which associate deeply with the form of Chinese opera. Then, we delved further into the relations between the practice of Chinese opera and the Chinese aesthetics concepts. Finally, we analyzed the two examples, not through the discussions related to “intercultural theater” developed by occidental researchers and commonly referred to Taiwanese researchers, but through the conceptions that we have developed in the last two chapters of this thesis. Through this study, we expect to propose a different way to approach the theatrical productions that broke the routine and cannot be analyzed by the standard rules.

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