Learning on the job
That first stage appearance was during a sparsely attended matinee. Tang Mei-yun just followed the others as they kneeled or bowed. But that night, they lacked a performer for a supporting female role, and once again they looked to her. This time the role had a wedding-night bedroom scene, in which she had to sing in a duma duet. Her mother had to give her a crash course, summarizing the plot and helping her to memorize her part line by line. To put her mind at rest, they told her that once she got through that section, the older actress on stage (playing the role of a prince) would sing the rest by herself.
With great reservations, Tang Mei-yun appeared as the princess, finished singing the section she had learned, and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't realize that the actress playing the prince hadn't sung to the end of the scene. The other actress widened her eyes, hinting it was Mei-yun's turn to sing. But her mother hadn't taught her any more lyrics. How could she continue?
Tang looked at the other actress, who ignored her, turning her body and gesturing. She looked at the musicians, who were suppressing laughs, and felt humiliated. "If there had been a hole on that stage, I would have crawled into it." Fortunately, her mother backstage had heard the musicians playing without anyone singing, and realized the predicament. She positioned herself on the other side of a curtain right behind Mei-yun and fed her her lines one at a time. With her mother's help, Mei-yun was able to get through her part.
Afterwards, Tang felt she had suffered a loss of face and believed her parents had deliberately misled her. She swore her opera career was over. But destiny had other plans, for the company was always short of actors. Eventually, Mei-yun reluctantly gave up on her schooling and started to help out in the opera company. Because she lacked basic training, she had to learn on the job. Whatever role the company lacked, she would play, be it male or female leads, painted-face male roles, the elderly, clowns, or bit parts. To get her up to speed, her father would bring her along whenever he left home to teach opera. But she wasn't particularly excited about it. Whenever she saw her old classmates on the way to school in their neat uniforms, she couldn't help breaking into tears. It wasn't until she was 18 and went abroad for public performances that her view of Taiwanese Opera began to change.
Experts lauded Desert Rouge in 2003 as one of the rare new Taiwanese operas to have an outstanding score. The opera was inspired by Sima Guang's classic Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.