【大西洋月刊20120319]】朝鲜的乒乓外交：血海歌剧团的演出——一部朝鲜音乐外交史

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The Sea of Blood Opera Show: A History of North Korea's Musical Diplomacy
MAR 19 2012, 8:01 AM ET
ADAM CATHCART
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-sea-of-blood-opera-show-a-history-of-north-koreas-musical-diplomacy/254697/

A Pyongyang orchestra's trip to Paris is just the latest in a half-century of odd and carefully managed shows.

North Korean musicians warm up in Paris / Reuters

Last week, North Korea's premier state instrumental ensemble, the Unhasu Orchestra, performed in Europe for the first time since 1953, the year the Korean War ended. The event was a landmark in North Korea's latest show of opening and reform, a cycle it has repeated many times, this time under the leadership of young new heir Kim Jung Un. The carefully managed event was also a reminder that, with so much energy and scrutiny applied to an event that would be boringly routine for most countries, the world has a long way to go before seriously engaging North Korea on touchier matters like, say, nuclear weapons or conflict with South Korea.

In 1972, one week before President Richard Nixon's historic trip to China, an ensemble of North Korean dancers and circus performers stormed Paris, imitating the new push for cultural diplomacy in Beijing. Individual North Korean musicians still occasionally perform in the music competition circuit in Europe.

North Korea's cultural diplomacy started during the Korean War and has not changed a great deal since that time. The mission has always combined a Stalinist style ruler-worship with, more practically, a way to press for foreign donations for the impoverished county. During the war, North Korean troupes regularly toured East Germany and China, both reliable allies, where they ate well and collected as much material as humanly possible, from cash to hydraulic drills, to take back home.

In 1952, several large delegations of North Korean performers set out for European fundraising tours. German audiences were particularly appreciative, lavishing private donations on the state chorus and children's choirs that crisscrossed the Eastern bloc. One group travelled with a few wounded veterans and General Kim Il. The general was very much free to engage in fundraising trips, given that he had left the command of his decimated army firmly in Chinese hands. Choirs of North Korean orphans were particularly effective at eliciting donations. Would it be possible, the East German bureaucrats who'd organized the concerts asked in neatly typed letters from Leipzig, for the North Koreans to send more orphans next time?

More recent acts of North Korean musical diplomacy have followed a somewhat less overtly pathetic model. Last October, then-leader Kim Jong Il unleashed the Sea of Blood (Pibida) Opera Troupe, named for a revolutionary saga of Korean migrant women in Manchuria that was supposedly written by regime founder Kim Il Sung, consolidating the relationship with his regime's most important patron. Back home in North Korea, the regime portrayed the opera as an act of Kim's personal, overactive, and micromanaging genius. The tour was also an opportunity to show Chinese audiences that they were getting something back for all their foreign aid to Pyongyang.

But the North Korean leaders always find a way to rattle their sabers. North Korea's official news agency probably chose their words carefully when, on February 11, they declared that the Unhasu Orchestra was "more powerful than a nuclear bomb." The country has a special skill for mixing beautiful and belligerent, and the recent trip to Paris was no exception.

The Unhasu Orchestra is made up primarily of Western instruments, which are sometimes used, as they were in Paris last week, alongside traditional Korean soloists. The group is a product -- the most celebrated instrumental product, in fact -- of the state's centrally controlled system of artistic training and production. The ensemble bears the specific imprimatur of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, and his Respected Successor, Kim Jong Un. There are few greater signs of political commendation for a North Korean official than to be invited to appear with the leader at one of the orchestra's performances.

Last June, in the Chinese city of Dandong, just across the border from North Korea, I discussed the Unhasu orchestra with one of Dandong's ubiquitous North Korean musician-waitresses. As we admired the front page of the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun and its immense photo of Kim Jong Il implacably standing to applaud a performance by the orchestra, I asked her what made the ensemble so good. I wondered if it wasn't their conservatory training? "It is because they want to honor the Supreme Leader (suryongnim)," she told me earnestly.

Only days after a black Cadillac hearse paraded Kim Jong Il's body though Pyongyang, the state produced, staged, and repeatedly performed a huge choral-orchestral cantata all about the life and legacy of the man who had portrayed himself as philosopher-king. Rewards to the composers were rapidly distributed. The strings, brass, and woodwinds of the Unhasu Orchestra stood at the centerpiece of those performances, which were attended more than once by audiophile and successor Kim Jong Un.

The group went on a punishing performance schedule across North Korea. While the orchestra's main repertoire in Paris was Brahms and Saint-Saens, North Korean state media strongly implied that the Unhasu's tour there was imbued with the spirit of Kim Jong Il, a demonstration for Europe of the Kimist renaissance in the greatest and most generous country on earth, North Korea.

For all its propaganda value back home, the orchestra tour also sent an important message to Europe and the West: the country is receptive to contact with the outside. The carefully staged pre-performance activities were, in communicating this bit of diplomacy, practically as important as the show itself. The North Korean musicians appeared at the Louvre, posed with the Mona Lisa, and spent a day at Versailles. For a country whose national propaganda often portrays such Western icons as representations of barbarism and evil, this was a big deal. China's state-run news agency Xinhua, an eager booster of North Korea's opening, quoted a French violinist as saying, "with this collaboration, opening itself to the world -- they will soon be at the level of their neighbors."

As is so often the case with North Korea's outreaches, this is probably about aid. The European Union Working Group on North Korean Issues, which makes formal recommendations on food aid to the country, is scheduled to meet later this month. Pyongyang has probably noticed that international human rights abuses are getting more attention in Europe lately, which could risk European support for food aid to North Korea.

European leaders might also see an opportunity for greater diplomatic access to Pyongyang, which Russia and the U.S. have long dominated. Kim Jong Un was educated in a European middle school, after all.

Still, North Korea is North Korea, and happy engagement is not this regime's most comfortable habit. State-run news on the day of the concert promoted military drills and angry speeches by "Red Guard Worker-Peasant Militia," who used old machine guns to blast holes in targets bearing the name of the South Korean President. University students in Pyongyang were reported to volunteer en masse for military service, each vowing to become one of "five million human bombs to defend the sacred dignity of the DPRK's leaders." The state news agency, responding in part to a new memoir released in French by a North Korean refugee, also pledged to destroy those who harmed the reputation of the DPRK.

These events can look absurd, but West participates because it does not want to discourage any chance for opening and because the idea of cultivating "civil society" ties is too powerful to resist even if, properly speaking, North Korea does not have a civil society. North Korea has left few openings for engagement, and those that have been opened often blow up Pyongyang's face. A recent figure skating championship in Pyongyang sparked scandal in Finland, when a Finnish skater who participated was forced to apologize for the appearance of supporting the regime. A soccer team sent to play against Germany generated international mockery when the team's captain blamed the lightning for their loss.

Against this ostinato of critique, the Unhasu Orchestra's trip to Paris was another of North Korea's probably futile efforts to convince the outside world that the rhythm of change in Pyongyang may in fact be accelerating.

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《大西洋》月刊 血海歌剧团的演出——一部朝鲜音乐外交史

本文由"译者"志愿者翻译并校对
http://yyyyiiii.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_8070.html

译者注：

核心提示：朝鲜领导人总是能找到示威的办法。2月11日，朝鲜官方通讯社宣称银河水管弦乐团"比一颗核弹更有威力"的时候，它或许谨慎地选择了措辞。朝鲜拥有一种将美好事物同斗争结合起来的特殊技能，最近的巴黎之行也不例外。除了在国内具有宣传价值外，银河水管弦乐团还向欧洲和西方传递了一个重要信息：朝鲜是善于同外界接触的。

平壤管弦乐团对巴黎的访问，是半个世纪的不多的、得到精心安排的演出中最近的一次。

上周，朝鲜顶级国家乐团——朝鲜银河水管弦乐团——在欧洲进行了1953年以来的首次演出。1953年是朝鲜战争结束的年份。这个事件是一个里程碑式的事件，显示着朝鲜的开放和变革。朝鲜已经多次表现其开放和变革，这次则是在年轻的新领导人金正恩的领导下进行的。这个精心组织的事件也提醒人们，为一个大部分国家视为常规活动的事件就要投入这么多精力，那么世界也还要走很长的路才能同朝鲜在核武器或朝韩冲突等更棘手的问题上进行严肃接触。

1972年，美国总统尼克松对中国进行历史性访问的一周前，朝鲜一个舞蹈和杂技表演团体仿照在北京推行文化外交的新做法，在巴黎引起了轰动。朝鲜音乐家作为个人也偶尔会在欧洲的音乐比赛中进行表演。

朝鲜的文化外交是在朝鲜战争期间开始的，并且从那以后没有发生太大变化。这个任务既表现了斯大林式的领导人崇拜，也是为贫困的朝鲜争取外国捐助的务实途径。在战争期间，各种朝鲜艺术团体会定期在东德和中国进行巡回演出。东德和中国都是朝鲜的可靠盟友，朝鲜人在这两个国家能享受较好的食物，并能筹集到尽可能多的物资，从现金到液压钻头，带回国内。

1952年，几个由朝鲜演员组成的大型代表团开始在欧洲展开筹款之旅。德国观众尤其欣赏朝鲜的演出，他们给朝鲜国家合唱团和儿童合唱团提供了慷慨的私人捐助。其中一个代表团有一些受伤的老兵以及金日成将军一起。将军有足够的自由时间从事筹款之旅，他损折严重的部队牢牢地掌控在中国人的手中。朝鲜剧团的孤儿诱发捐助的效率尤其高。那些组织演出的东德官僚们难道会从莱比锡打出工工整整的信件，请求朝鲜下次派出更多的孤儿？

晚近期朝鲜的音乐外交则遵循一种多少不再那么明显悲情的模式。去年10月，当时的领导人金正日派遣血海歌剧团（根据一个描写满洲朝鲜移民妇女的革命传奇故事而得名，据说是朝鲜现政权的创立者金日成撰写的）来巩固其政权同朝鲜最重要的保护国的关系。在朝鲜国内，金正日政权将派遣血海歌剧团描述为是表现了金充满活力和善于对事务进行微观处理的个人天才。这个活动也向中国观众表明，中国人对平壤的对外援助正在取得回报。

但是朝鲜领导人总是能找到示威的办法。2月11日，朝鲜官方通讯社宣称银河水管弦乐团"比一颗核弹更有威力"的时候，它或许仔细地选择了措辞。朝鲜拥有一种将美好事物同斗争结合起来的特殊技能，最近的巴黎之行也不例外。

银河水管弦乐团主要使用西方乐器，但这些乐器有时也用来为朝鲜传统的表演形式伴奏。这个乐团是朝鲜艺术培训和制作的国家中央控制系统的产物。这个乐团获得了"亲爱领袖"金正日和后来的"尊敬的接班人"金正恩的特别认可。如果一名朝鲜官员能受到邀请同领导人共同观看该乐团的演出将意味着无上的政治荣誉。

去年6月，在紧靠朝鲜边境的中国城市丹东，我和一位遍布丹东的朝鲜音乐家-女招待讨论银河水乐团。我们对国营的《劳动报》头版上金正日的巨大照片称羡不已，他面无表情地站着，为银河水乐团的演出鼓掌。我问她，是什么使得演出如此精彩，我想知道是不是他们在音乐学校受到的训练？她诚恳地对我说："那是因为他们想赞颂伟大领袖。"

一辆黑色"凯迪拉克"汽车载着金正日的遗体穿过平壤仅仅几天后，朝鲜就制作、上演并反复演出了一个由合唱团和管弦乐队合作的大合唱，用来颂扬一个将自己塑造为哲学家兼国王的领导人的生活和精神遗产。给作曲家的奖励很快分配下去。银河水管弦乐团的弦乐器、铜管乐器和木管乐器在这类演出中扮演着中心角色，而音乐爱好者和接班人金正恩不止一次出席了这类演出。

这个团体还承担着遍及朝鲜全国、令人精疲力竭的演出任务。尽管乐团在巴黎的主要演出曲目是勃拉姆斯和圣桑，但朝鲜的国家媒体强烈暗示银河水在那里的演出渗透着金正日精神，向欧洲展示地球上最伟大的、最慷慨的国度——朝鲜——的金氏主义文艺复兴。

除了其对国内的全部宣传价值，银河水管弦乐团还向欧洲和西方传递了一个重要信息：朝鲜是善于同外界接触的。从外交上来说，谨慎安排的演出前活动实际上同演出本身一样重要。朝鲜音乐家出现在卢浮宫，参观《蒙娜丽莎》，并在凡尔赛渡过了一天。朝鲜的国家宣传机器常常将这些西方标志描述为野蛮和邪恶的代表。对这样的国家来说，音乐家们演出前的活动可不算小事。中国国营的新华通讯社竭力推动朝鲜的开放，它引用一位法国小提琴演奏家的话说："通过合作，向世界开放自己——他们很快就会赶上邻国们的水平。"

这或许是为了获得援助，正如朝鲜很多对外活动的情形一样。欧盟朝鲜问题工作组是一个就对朝粮食援助提供建议的机构。它定于本月晚些时候进行会晤。平壤或许注意到了，最近国际上违反人权的问题正在欧洲引起更多关注，这可能会影响欧洲对向朝鲜提供粮食援助的支持。

欧洲领导人或许将向朝鲜提供援助视为同平壤进行更多外交接触的机会。长期以来俄罗斯和美国一直主导了同朝鲜的外交。毕竟，金正恩曾在欧洲的一所中学接受教育。

然而，朝鲜就是朝鲜，愉快的接触并不符合其政权的习惯，也不会让它觉得舒服。在音乐会当天，朝鲜国家新闻机构还在报道"工农民兵组织的红色警卫队"的军事演习和愤怒言论。这些团体使用老式的机关枪在写有韩国总统名字的目标上打出一个个枪眼。据报道，平壤的大学生全体自愿到军队服役，他们每个人都发誓成为"保卫朝鲜民主主义人民共和国领导人神圣尊严的500万人弹"之一。朝鲜国家通讯社也发誓消灭损害朝鲜声誉的人。这或许部分是对一个朝鲜避难者在法国公布的新的回忆录作出的反应。

这类事件可能看起来很荒唐，但是西方参与朝鲜事务是因为它不想放过任何一个鼓励朝鲜走向开放的机会，也因为培育"公民社会"的想法过于强烈而令人难以抵御，即使恰当地说朝鲜根本没有一个公民社会。朝鲜没有开放多少窗口供与外界接触，而它打开的窗口则经常让平壤丢脸。最近在平壤举办的一个花样滑冰锦标赛在芬兰引发了丑闻。一名参加该锦标赛的芬兰滑冰运动员被迫为出席这次比赛从而对朝鲜政权提供了支持而道歉。朝鲜派遣的足球队同德国队进行比赛后引发了国际社会的嘲笑，因为该足球队队长说导致他们输球的原因是闪电。

尽管有这些顽固的批评声音，银河水管弦乐团的巴黎之行是朝鲜的又一次努力，希望说服外面的世界平壤的变革节奏实际上在加快。然而在目前背景下，此举也可能徒劳无功。