Lutes Abroad: Translations, Productions, and Derivations of Pipa ji in Western Languages

Despite considerable interest in Chinese drama and performance abroad, barriers of language and geography have tended to limit the degree to which any given Chinese narrative has flourished outside China. There has been, however, a great deal more of such travel than is usually recognized, and that is partly because such transmission and translation has been sporadic across languages and eras. This research note seeks to marshal in one place some information on lesser-known foreign adaptations of Pipa ji 琵琶記 (The Lute). Since this note is intended to be useful for those interested in the history of this narrative abroad, I have included information not only on some little-known adaptations, but also seldom-consulted sources of reception for the two best-known non-Chinese iterations of the narrative, Bazin’s French translation of 1841 and the 1930 (premiere)/1946 (Broadway musical) American adaptation Lute Song. As a major text of the Chinese dramatic canon as well as a persistent element of xiqu repertoire in numerous genres, understanding the translations and metamorphoses of Pipa ji is likely to remain an area of lively interest in our field. With the last major production of Lute Song occurring in 1989, it has proven impracticable to attempt to limit this survey at a certain date, but the materials being both interesting and otherwise inaccessible, I thought it useful to include them. Likewise, it seemed probable that the recording history of Lute Song’s most famous song, “Mountain High, Valley Low” might surprise and entertain some CHINOPERL readers. On the other hand, I have made no effort to catalogue other post-war translations of Pipa ji, which are relatively recent and widely accessible, let alone give an account of Sinological Western scholarship about the play or its productions. Finally, I have made one exception to the “Western languages” of the title by including brief mention of a Dutch East Indies Malay text, because it derives from an English-language intermediary text, and because I happen to have information respecting it. On the other hand, I have no competence in other languages where adaptations may have occurred (Japanese,1 Korean, Vietnamese), and this note has no pretensions to completeness.