P'ansori is traditionally performed by a solo singer-storyteller with no other props than a handkerchief and fan, and no other accompaniment than the single barrel drum puk. Dramatic projection is restricted to what the lone reciter can accomplish by taking on the roles of individual characters whose words are reported in direct speech, and turning to the drummer as the character, to whom these words are addressed. In the twentieth century, however, there have been repeated and sustained attempts to develop a form of opera on the basis of p'ansori, with multiple singing actors, an accompanying orchestra of traditional instruments, and often quite elaborate stage scenery and costumes. This theatrical adaptation of p'ansori has gone by various names, but is today generally known as ch'angguk: literally, 'singing drama'.

In a modern production of the National Ch'angguk Troupe in the main hall of the National Theater, the story and singing style will be taken from p'ansori, but beyond that, it may be difficult to recognize the traditional genre in its relatively new guise. The minimal resources of solo p'ansori performance have been left far behind in what can often best be described as a theatrical extravaganza. The straw mat that bounds the performance space of p'ansori is a far cry from the vast stage of the National Theater with its turntable, trap doors, and lifts. The p'ansori singer's appeal to the audience's imagination seems a different kind of aesthetic from ch'angguk's attempt to present everything concretely before the audience's eyes.

For this and other reasons, ch'angguk has been slow to win the approbation of the p'ansori afficionado. Scholars of p'ansori are almost unanimous in treating ch'angguk rather condescendingly as a form that is perhaps easier for general audiences to appreciate, but that can never approach the artistic sublimity of an expert solo performance. Ch'angguk has even been blamed at times for a deterioration of standards in the parent genre itself, resulting from excessive attention to theatrical effect at the expense of accomplished and authentic p'ansori-style singing. These attitudes have led to a general scholarly neglect of ch'angguk in both Korean and Western sources.

While many of the criticisms aimed at ch'angguk have undoubtedly been just, some have missed their mark by evaluating ch'angguk solely on the basis of how faithfully it retains the much-vaunted artistic qualities of p'ansori. It seems unfair to judge one genre by the standards of another, and ch'angguk has often found itself so much overshadowed by the established reputation of p'ansori that it has been unable to develop aesthetic principles of its own. Thus, much of the criticism has been far from productive.

(19-3, p. 5)

It would be wrong to give the impression that the appeal of ch'angguk lies solely in theatrical spectacle. Large-scale ch'angguk productions in the main hall of the National Theater are given only once a year, and between times, the National Ch'angguk Troupe mounts more modest productions (including occasional new works from outside the p'ansori repertoire) in the National Theater's small hall. While there is no other full-time professional troupe devoted to the genre, temporary troupes are assembled from time to time in Seoul, and a provincial troupe performs regularly in Kwangju, in both cases using relatively simple stage scenery, and subordinating theatrical effect to musical excellence-as indeed does the National Ch'angguk Troupe, whose leading performers are second to none as p'ansori singers in their own right. It is not through spectacle, but through p'ansori-style singing, that ch'angguk differentiates itself from other forms of musical theater, and it has certainly won more devotees through its music than through its visual presentation.

The question, then, arises as to what, other than showmanship, ch'angguk can do that p'ansori does not already do better. For many, the chief attraction of ch'angguk is perhaps the opportunity to hear several outstanding p'ansori singers in the same performance, in a setting that is more colorful and evocative than the austere folding-screen backdrop of most solo p'ansori performances. But this does ch'angguk an injustice by treating it as a mere showcase for p'ansori, a role that it has struggled hard to transcend. Ch'angguk, at its best, need not merely aspire to the condition of p'ansori, but can realize the dramatic potential inherent in that essentially narrative genre through dialogue and acting based on the stylized speech (aniri) and movement (pallim) that are as much a part of p'ansori as the celebrated husky vocal production of its singing (ch'ang).

Distinctively Korean

Ch'angguk, in addition, has a role to play for Korea as a form of theater that, if not exactly 'traditional,' is at least based on traditional sources and performance techniques, and that can thus constitute a distinctively Korean form of theater to represent the country in international contexts. In the absence of a long and highly evolved tradition of professional, indoor theater like those of neighboring China and Japan, ch'angguk is perhaps the best candidate for this role. This is one reason why it has received such generous sponsorship from the state (being no more commercially viable today than is grand opera in the West): at least since the 1981 Asian Folk Theater Festival in Hong Kong, ch'angguk has been groomed to represent Korea to international audiences. The Seoul Olympics of 1988 saw a renewed flurry of activity in this direction, with entire libretti being translated for projection on a screen beside the stage, and ch'angguk touted as a gold medal winner in the 'cultural Olympics'.

These efforts were not without success, and veteran director Ho Kyu recalled in an interview with this author that non-Korean audiences have typically responded more enthusiastically to ch'angguk than have Korean ones. It may be that listeners, who appreciate the emotional expressiveness and vocal virtuosity of p'ansori singing, but who cannot understand the esoteric form of Korean in which the p'ansori texts are composed, find ch'angguk a more accessible medium in that at least the settings and characters can be distinguished without understanding the language of the text. Whatever the reason, ch'angguk has shown itself to have an appeal beyond its original language community.

The English speaker, whose curiosity has been piqued by a performance of ch'angguk, is in one respect more fortunate than the Korean speaker, for while no ch'angguk libretto reflecting current practice has ever been published in Korean, a number of English translations are available.1 The same English speaker is, however, likely to be frustrated in the desire to learn more about the genre unless he or she is willing to learn Korean and to track down some hard-to-find, mostly unpublished sources. My own research on ch'angguk revealed that there was simply no reliable information on the genre available in English. What few materials existed were based on the most accessible, rather than the most accurate, Korean sources, and even in Korean, there was little scholarly research devoted specifically to ch'angguk. This makes an ironic contrast with the vast volume of writing on p'ansori, for which bibliographies of more than 1,000 items have been compiled. The standard works in both languages on p'ansori, however authoritative when dealing with the solo genre, have tended to treat ch'angguk as a rather regrettable episode in the history of that genre, and have been content to repeat an account of the origins and growth of ch'angguk that is now discredited by the handful of scholars who have researched the subject through primary sources. The same is largely true of writings on the history of Korean drama, despite the special position ch'angguk holds in that field as Korea's first form of drama to be presented in an indoor theater.

Suspect Research

In particular, writers whose main interest was (19-3,P.7) p'ansori have relied almost exclusively, when discussing the history of ch'angguk, on the one published book on the subject, written by ch'angguk librettist Pak Hwang in the 1970s.2 Pak Hwang himself admits in his preface that this is "not a piece of research in the strict sense" (p. 3), being based mostly on hearsay and reminiscences, and Paek Hyon-mi, in the most meticulously researched study to date of the early history of ch'angguk, found Yak's book so riddled with errors that she decided not to cite it at all except in illustrating points that could be confirmed from other sources.3 Yet Pak Hwang's version of events has become the standard one through its uncritical reproduction by writers, who, one can only assume, did not consider ch'angguk worthy of more thorough research.

Thus, when I began my research on the history of ch'angguk at the end of 1994, the only relevant published writings in English were an article by Marshall Pihl on the origins of the genre and a reworking of that article as a chapter of Pihl's book on p'ansori,4 both of which took Pak Hwang's work at face value even while attempting to reconcile it with a more scholarly study by Ch'oe Won-shik.5 The inaccuracies that appeared in Pihl's account in the light of more recent and specialized Korean research led me eventually to publish a re-study of the subject of his 1991 article, taking advantage of the progress that had been made in the intervening years.6 This study; however, could only evaluate the evidence relating to the origins and early history of ch'angguk, and it now seems appropriate to attempt a summary of the whole history of the genre as it appears at present, before briefly touching on its current status and probable future directions.

The Origins and Development of Ch'angguk

Prior to the twentieth century, Korea had various performing arts that could be described as 'dramatic'. masked-dance dramas (t'alch'um), puppet plays (kkoktu kakshi), court variety shows (sandaehui), and even the performances of shamans who took on the personae of the spirits that possessed them. But there was no theatrical art form comparable to those of Japan, China, or the West, in which dramas were enacted by professional performers in an enclosed space before audiences paying fixed rates for admission. The reason for this was undoubtedly, as Pihl says, that Korea lacked the "great urban centers with a monied mercantile class that would support professional theater," as found in neighboring countries.7 Such a theatrical art reached Korea shortly after 1900 with the burgeoning commercial activity that accompanied the prelude to the Japanese Protectorate and Annexation; and it came first in the form of ch'angguk.

The standard account of ch'angguk's origins has been based on the recollections of p'ansori singer Yi Tong-baek, as quoted by Pak Hwang, to the effect that another p'ansori singer, Kang Yong-hwan, having frequented a Chinese opera house in Seoul around the turn of the century, was inspired by this to create the first ch'angguk opera, an adaptation of the p'ansori "Ch'unhyang-ga," at the new Won'gaksa theater in 1903. Having thus been created on a respectable Chinese model, ch'angguk was, then, according to this account, immediately suppressed by the Japanese, who closed the Won'gaksa soon after imposing their Protectorate in 1905, so that ch'angguk performers were reduced to wandering the provinces in itinerant troupes called hyomnyulsa, which were themselves dispersed on Annexation in 1910.8

However, there is no clear contemporary evidence that there ever was a Chinese opera house in Seoul, and recent research has found that Kang Yong-hwan, despite the key role that Pak Hwang ascribes to him in this and many subsequent ch'angguk productions, died in 1900.9 Moreover, it now appears that Japanese influence, far from uprooting the shoots of the new art form, was responsible for implanting them in the first place, and that the initiative to develop an operatic form of p'ansori came not from the performers themselves, but from the managers of the new indoor theaters, who had at least one eye on recent developments in Japan.

The first of these indoor theaters was indeed the Won'gaksa, built at royal expense in 1902 for a proposed ceremony in honor of the fortieth anniversary of King Kojong's accession, and reflecting the increased power and prestige that the King had attained since escaping from Japanese custody to the Russian legation in 1897. In the event, the ceremony was postponed by a series of adverse circumstances, but the theater was opened as a commercial venture by the government office responsible for its administration, the Hyomnyulsa. It began to present traditional performances by p'ansori singers, entertaining girls (kisaeng), and other artists; but there was much opposition to the venal and (in some eyes) immoral use to which this royal theater was being put, and it was eventually closed by royal decree following a petition to the King in 1906.

First Performances

The following year, however, King Kojong was deposed and replaced by his son, Sunjong, and the reopening of the Won'gaksa became a possibility. The man, who eventually took advantage of this opportunity, was Yi In-jik, a writer and politician of pro-Japanese leanings, who saw the theater as a forum for propagating his views. Yi had introduced the 'new novel' (sinsosol) to Korea with his "Hyol ui nu" (Tears of Blood) in 1906. In 1908, he wrote another such novel, "Unsegye" (Silver World), which showed the pro-Japanese tendency typical of the genre in its critique of Korea's traditional social order and advocacy of the need for external intervention, but was unusual in that its first half was intended for performance in dramatic mode. When he (19-3, p. 8) arranged for the re-opening of the Won'gaksa in July 1908, Yi In-jik knew that the only available performers experienced in declamation were p'ansori singers; but he was familiar with the style of p'ansori texts, having earlier translated one into Japanese, and was able to write "Unsegye" in part as a parody of a p'ansori novel' (p'ansori-gye sosol) so that it could be performed by the kwangdae. The arrangement of music was left to the performers, but was facilitated by the liberal use of 'interpolated songs' (sabip kayo) for which Yi wrote new words to existing melodies. 10

The principal dramatic model that Yi In-jik had in mind was the shimpa or 'new school' melodrama of Japan, which had developed in the 1890s out of 'political dramas' (soshi geki) that were used in electioneering, and which must have impressed him as both modern and potentially didactic, when he saw it during his residence in Japan as a student in 1900-1903. This spoken form of drama was remote from anything, of which the p'ansori singers had experience, and the unfamiliarity of the performance techniques they had to learn is indicated both by the initial announcement of a two-month period of training for them, and by the subsequent postponement of the production, which did not open until November 1908. Yi In-jik did not, however, personally supervise the training and rehearsal process, but departed within weeks of reopening the Won'gaksa to observe the introduction of Western realist drama in Japan, leaving the theater in the hands of pro-Japanese associates who did not share either his literary bent or his personal interest in the theatrical project. In these circumstances, the p'ansori singers must have been given a free hand to perform "Unsegye" as they thought fit, with the inevitable result that they fell back on their traditional techniques and made this a true p'ansori-style drama. As there is no reliable evidence of a ch'angguk production before this, we must regard "Unsegye" as the first ch'angguk.

The dramatic production of "Unsegye" appears to have used only the first part of Yi In-jik's novel, which encapsulates the injustices of the late Choson social system in the plight of a man named Ch'oe Pyong-do who is thwarted in his efforts to advance his fortunes by a corrupt official who has him beaten, eventually to death, in the process of extorting a 'loan' that he has no intention of repaying. The second part of the novel, describing the experiences of Ch'oe's children as students in the United States and their eventual realization of Korea's inability to stand on its own feet, is assumed to have been omitted since it is written in Yi In-jik's usual 'new novel' style rather than the p'ansori novel style he used for the first part, and its action would have been difficult to present on the stage. Yi In-jik may have hoped that the theatrical presentation would inspire spectators to read his novel, which was published simultaneously with the production. In this he was perhaps not disappointed, for the show drew crowds for several weeks, perhaps as much because of its portrayal of a common Korean experience, as because of its novel mode of performance.

Guiding Light Lost

This initial success, however, proved a hard act to follow. With the departure of Yi In-jik, ch'angguk had lost its initial guiding light, and no successor could be found either among his literary friends, his associates at the Won'gaksa, or the p'ansori performers themselves. Though the new theatrical genre had originally been advertised as shinyon'guk or 'new drama' on the analogy with both the 'new novel' and the 'new school' melodramas of Japan, there was no writer able and willing to create new repertoire along the lines of "Unsegye." As a result, the p'ansori singers began performing stories from their traditional repertoire in a more or less dramatized form, with a separate singer taking each role. Today, this is the only ch'angguk repertoire that is able to attract an audience, but in the wake of "Unsegye," these hackneyed stories were a bitter disappointment to audiences thirsting for novelty. These audiences were not reticent in expressing their disappointment, and by the end of 1909, the Won'gaksa had ceased to present ch'angguk.

Meanwhile, from 107, a number of private commercial theaters, under both Japanese and Korean management, had appeared in Seoul, and these may also have played a role in the emergence of ch'angguk: the Japanese theaters by introducing 'new school' melodrama to Korea (albeit largely for Japanese audiences), and the Korean ones by experimenting with the presentation of passages from p'ansori in dialogue style. After the Won'gaksa had abandoned ch'angguk, the Korean private theaters adopted the genre, and in their hands, contrary to the usual claim that ch'angguk was virtually wiped out by the Japanese Annexation of 1910, its for- (19-3, p. 9) tunes appear to have picked up during the first few years of the colonial period.11 It managed to withstand competition from 'new school' melodramas that were now being performed in Korean, but both genres gradually succumbed, at least in Seoul, to the much greater popularity of imported silent movies narrated by celebrity 'voice actors' called pyonsa.

Scenes from ch'angguk, then, came to be performed as part of a variety show of traditional performing arts by touring troupes called hyomnyulsa, which, again, were not dispersed at the beginning of the colonial period as Pak Hwang claims, but, on the contrary, first appeared at that time (though similar troupes had existed in Korea under different names for centuries). These introduced the new genre to audiences in the smaller towns and rural areas, where it eventually found a warmer welcome than in the capital. Such performances probably continued throughout the colonial era, but as they are rarely mentioned in newspapers or other contemporary sources, it is difficult to know much about them.

It was not until the 1930s that ch'angguk enjoyed a full-blown revival in Seoul. The early years of that decade saw a surge of interest in, and research on, Korea's folk heritage on the part of both Korean and Japanese scholars, which helped to win a new respect for folk performance arts and to create an atmosphere in which institutions could be established for their maintenance and transmission. One such institution was the Korean Vocal Music Association (Choson songak yon'guhoe), which was established in 1934 for the purpose of protecting the p'ansori tradition and training successors to the aging generation of leading performers. Within two years, however, the Association had branched out from its original purpose and was staging ch'angguk productions with the help of directors schooled in 'new school' melodrama or in the Western-style realist drama that had been introduced to Korea during the previous decade. 12

Reinventing the Genre

This new incarnation of ch'angguk was in many ways not so much a revival as a re-invention of the genre, introducing a mode of performance that had never been attempted before. Whereas complete stories had rarely if ever been performed at a sitting in either p'ansori or ch'angguk before this time, complete performance now replaced the earlier episodic style of presentation as the standard practice in ch'angguk. The texts of previous ch'angguk performances, other than "Unsegye," had been largely taken from existing p'ansori material and merely distributed among several singers, but large amounts of spoken dialogue were now added to provide both continuity and a dramatic convention acceptable to contemporary audiences. The scale of ch'angguk productions became larger in every respect: casts were swelled with extras, the lone puk drummer was supplanted by an orchestra of traditional instruments, and stage scenery, minimal or restricted to a painted background in earlier productions, developed to the point where sheer spectacle became a selling point for the genre. All this was made possible by the group's association with the new Tongyang Theater, a building used only for live drama (while other Seoul theaters were used promiscuously for drama, film, concerts, and lectures) and hosting several resident troupes as well as a stage crew whose expertise and equipment were the best to be had in any Korean theater.

As this new generation of ch'angguk came of age, the existing repertoire, limited to a handful of familiar p'ansori stories, was soon felt to be inadequate to sustain the newfound success of the genre, and efforts were made to create new works. Some of these were reconstructions of stories like "Pae-bijang chon" (The Story of Officer Pae) which had once been part of the p'ansori repertoire but had been almost or completely lost; others were adaptations of old novels such as "Ongnumong" (Dream of the Jade Chamber). One production, "Yu Ch'ung-nyol chon" (The Story of Yu Ch'ung-nyol), even experimented with the combined use of film and live action in a genre known as 'kinodrama' (yonswaeguk) that had enjoyed a brief vogue in Korea around 1920 and in Japan a decade before that.

By the early 1940s, the popularity of ch'angguk had led to the advent of several new troupes performing on tour throughout the peninsula. These further expanded the repertoire by introducing 'historical dramas' (yoksaguk) based on legends and fanciful versions of history, usually from Korea's remote past. But this was the time when Japanese control was at its tightest and the public use of the Korean language was being increasingly restricted. Like other drama troupes, ch'angguk troupes were allowed to perform only if they gave at least part of their (19-3, p. 10) program in Japanese, and this was hardly a circumstance in which the genre could flourish. Nevertheless, against the usual claim that the Japanese were simply intent on wiping out anything as distinctively and self-consciously Korean as ch'angguk, must be set the fact that a number of pro-Japanese works were given in ch'angguk as in other forms of drama, and the wartime colonial administrators may have been at times less interested in suppressing the genre than in using it as an instrument of propaganda.13

National Identity

After Liberation came in 1945, the proud expression of national identity was not only permitted, but was virtually required of any artistic endeavor that was to reach an audience in either South or North Korea. One symptom of this was that the various forms of traditional music, which had previously been performed mostly for quite different audiences and had relatively little to do with each other, came to be known collectively, for the first time, as kugak or 'national music.' On the analogy with this term, ch'angguk performers began to call their art kukkuk or 'national drama,' riding on a tide of nationalism that they hoped would carry them on to greater popularity. But the new name did not represent a significant change in performance practice or repertoire, and the romanticized 'historical dramas' of the earlier 1940s continued to be the main fare, culminating in a spectacular production of "Malli Changsong" (The Great Wall of China) for the opening of the National Theater in 1950.

This production was still on tour when the Korean War broke out, calling a halt to all ch'angguk activity for a while. Though some troupes were able to resume performance before the Armistice of 1953, the war had dealt a blow from which ch'angguk would never recover. The genre appears to have limped on for some years in North Korea, though too little is known about this to assert anything with certainty except that it no longer survives there. In the South, the growth of a thriving domestic film industry in the late 1950s was followed by the spread of television over the succeeding decades, and despite another attempt to align itself with modern film technology in kino-drama, this time in color, ch'angguk could not compete with these media or even survive without government support. The end of ch'angguk as a commercial proposition did not come immediately, however, for a new variant had arisen which was able to sustain a lingering viability into the 1960s.

All-Female Troupes: Yosong kukkuk

P'ansori singing had, of course, traditionally been an exclusively male occupation, but the trickle of female p'ansori singers that began to appear in the late nineteenth century would amount to a major current in the flow of ch'angguk from its very source. This is not to say, as Pihl does, that "the emergence of ch'angguk turned upon the availability of female performers,"14 for it is certain that men often played female roles in the early days of ch'angguk, as they did in every form of drama that was available as a model to the first ch'angguk performers, whether it be Korean masked-dance dramas, Chinese opera, Japanese kabuki, or even the 'new school' melodramas in which both men and women could play female roles. Nevertheless, even before ch'angguk appeared fully-fledged in "Unsegye," the first experiments in dialogue singing appear to have involved young girls belonging to the class of female entertainers known as kisaeng, and before long, groups of kisaeng were performing scenes from the p'ansori stories in which women played all the roles, male and female.15 Though they did not establish a continuous tradition, these groups stand as an antecedent to the all-female troupes that appeared after Liberation and that can still be seen today.

Antecedents to the all-female ch'angguk troupes can also be found outside Korea. Chinese opera had been performed on occasion by all-female troupes in the nineteenth century, as had kabuki in the more remote past. But perhaps a more relevant Japanese precedent was the Takarazuka Girls' Opera that started out in 1914 as a publicity stunt to attract visitors to a spa resort near Osaka. Takarazuka was an immediate success and quickly outgrew its original function to become what it is today: an established institution with its own theaters, stars, and devoted fans. It may not be a coincidence that the earliest evidence of theatrical performances by all female troupes in Korea dates from the same year as Takarazuka's debut. Though the Japanese phenomenon was modeled on Western operetta and revue, and its music was inspired by the works of German and Italian composers rather than indigenous sources, reports of its success may have given theater managers in Korea the idea of staging musico-dramatic performances with all-female casts singing in the style they knew best. A similar scenario appears to have been recapitulated thirty years later, when Takarazuka troupes performed in Korea for Japanese servicemen stationed there during the War, to be followed within a few years by a group of female p'ansori singers inaugurating a new movement in ch'angguk with a version of the best-loved tale in their repertoire, the Song of Ch'unhyang.

All-Female Variant

Because the usual term for ch'angguk in the post-Liberation years was kukkuk, that term was attached to the new all-female variant, which came to be known as yosong kukkuk or 'women's national drama'—the name it still uses today. The immediate sensation created by this first complete all-female opera led to a spate of new productions and new troupes. As in mixed-cast ch'angguk of the time, the stories were mostly romantic 'historical dramas' about princes and princesses threatened with separation by wars and treacherous intrigues. The principals' royal rank provided a pretext for gorgeous costumes and sets, while the militaristic (19-3, p. 11) background gave an excuse for exciting battle scenes and sword dances. Not only the cast, but most of the audience was female, and the spectators may have found in the performers both a stimulating new role model and a portrayal of masculinity that, however brash on the outside, was felt to be feminine, hence approachable, at the core. Thus, as in Takarazuka, it was always the players of male roles, stretching their voices note by note toward the bass, who had the most ardent following.

Like its mixed-cast progenitor, yosong kukkuk was thrown into confusion by the outbreak of the Korean War, but managed to pick up the threads and resume performance even under wartime conditions. Subsequently, until the late 1960s, all-female troupes were constantly forming, disbanding, and snatching each other's stars, and even the mixed troupes started converting to an all-female lineup, with their male performers restricted to playing accompanying music, in the effort to capitalize on the new craze. Leading stars were able to sustain a career through this period with loyal fans, but others fell as quickly as they had risen, and the sudden advent of so many new performers inevitably meant that not all could be equally talented or trained, and that standards were uneven. Still, the temporary demise of the genre was probably caused less by its own aesthetic weaknesses (as has usually been claimed) than by the rise of new media with which live performance in general could not compete.

Whatever the reason, there was a fifteen-year hiatus in yosong kukkuk performance until around 1983, when a number of stars from the heyday of the genre began to make a comeback, raising funds for each production from corporate and government sources, reviving some of their old repertoire, and eventually even commissioning new works. This revival has been an outstanding success, filling not only Korea's largest theaters but some major venues abroad —including, in April 1996, the Sydney Opera House.16

In some ways, the revival has adopted a different tone from the performances of the 1950s and 60s, with the return of the original stars bringing both an element of nostalgia and a generation gap in the cast. When yosong kukkuk made its debut, all the performers were young women, but today, it is the veterans who take the important male roles, their voices often ripened into a rich baritone, while newcomers make up the rank and file or play the female characters. Difficulties in casting young male leads may have encouraged a move away from the far-fetched romances of the old repertoire, toward stories revolving around the fate of nations rather than of individuals, in which older men could be the prime movers. This has made yosong kukkuk truly a 'national drama' as it takes on heavy national themes, especially since the fiftieth anniversary of Independence in 1995, when the nation's history of suffering at the hands of powerful neighbors became virtually the only theme to be treated seriously on Korean stages. If the genre continues to valorize itself through the appeal to solemn patriotism, there will surely be those who miss the naivety and camp of the earlier fairy-tale approach.

The National Ch'angguk Troupe

By the early 1960s, the prospects for ch'angguk looked bleak indeed, and without government intervention, the genre would almost certainly have become extinct. Even p'ansori was suffering from a lack of patronage, and ch'angguk, which was much more expensive to produce, had greater need but fewer sources of financial support.

It was probably the turbulent political events of the early 1960s that provided a basis for this support. The military junta that seized power in the coup of May 1961 was largely comprised of men, who, like its leader President Park Chung Hee, had been officers in the Japanese Imperial Army, and it was faced with an urgent need to legitimize itself, as much because of its taint of collaboration with the Japanese, as because of the strong-arm tactics by which it had imposed (19-3, p. 12) itself on the country. One way in which it sought this legitimacy was by becoming a generous patron of Korea's traditional culture, for which Park had shown nothing but contempt up to that time. In 1962, the Park regime passed a Cultural Properties Protection Act, modeled (ironically enough) on the one Japan had introduced in 1950, which would provide subsidies to leading exponents of traditional Korean arts, and not least to p'ansori singers.17 In the same year, the government granted funds to the National Theater enabling it to supplement its existing resident troupe (which performed only Western-style drama) with three additional troupes, including one devoted to ch'angguk. Thus, the National ch'angguk troupe was born, and it made a promising start with a lavish production of the Ch'unhyang story.

After this opening production, however, it became clear that the members of the National Ch'angguk Troupe were not to be put on full-time salary, but would be paid only when they were actually in rehearsal or performing. For the rest of the year they had to support themselves as best they could, frequently touring the provinces as itinerant entertainers in the tradition of the old hyomnyulsa. Moreover, the tight budget meant that ch'angguk productions with full stage scenery could rarely be given, and the troupe had to settle instead for performances in a format known as Yonch'ang ('connected singing'), in which a complete p'ansori story was presented by a sequence of individual singers, each delivering a portion of the narrative in the conventional solo manner. Under such circumstances, ch'angguk was hardly better off than it had been before the coup.

Standardizing the Form

The situation was only somewhat improved after 1967 when a committee of literary scholars and senior traditional artists was brought together under the aegis of the National Theater with the aim of standardizing texts and performance practices for both p'ansori and ch'angguk. This marked the beginning of the National Ch'angguk Troupe's ongoing effort to give ch'angguk the status of 'Korean traditional opera' (despite the genre's short history and incorporation of influences from abroad) by borrowing for it the unquestioned 'traditional' aura of p'ansori. Thus, ch'angguk productions were to eschew the newly composed 'historical dramas' of the previous quarter century, and rely almost exclusively on the popular p'ansori stories, using the traditional texts as far as possible intact and unadulterated by the additional spoken dialogue that had crept in to ch'angguk productions since the 1930s.

Accordingly, he favored a minimalistic use of scenery; though in the 1990s, with increased funding and the participation of directors schooled in Western opera, the full resources of the National Theater have been harnessed to ch'angguk.18 I will not soon forget the giant squid in the 1995 production of "Sugung-ga," each tentacle of which was operated by four dancers.

Conclusion

Ch'angguk is no longer threatened with extinction, and seems assured of a future in both its mixed-cast and its all-female versions. But it will perhaps always hover on the margins of Korea's 'traditional' performing arts as a poor relation or parvenu, not fully admitted into that hallowed company. Although many of its leading exponents have been designated 'human cultural treasures' for their performance of p'ansori, no one today seriously entertains the hope that ch'angguk itself will one day be recognized as an 'intangible cultural property.' Its history is too short, its pedigree too suspect, and its conventions too unstable, to meet the criteria for 'cultural property' status. Thus, when I began my research on ch'angguk, many Koreans involved in the performing arts discouraged me, pointing out that ch'angguk was not yet 'established' (chongnip-toen) and was moving too fast to hold in focus. But this is exactly what fascinates me about ch'angguk; it shows traditional resources, not preserved museum-style as Korea's performing arts too often have been, but unabashedly evolving to keep pace with contemporary audiences and their changing appetites for tradition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANDREW KILLICK is a doctoral candidate in ethno-musicology at the University of Washington, currently on leave for dissertation writing, and fulltime lecturer in English and British studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea.

NOTES

I. The first published translation of a ch'angguk libretto, Alan C. Heyman's translation of "The Story of Shim Ch'ong" from a text arranged by the National Theatrical Compilation Committee, appeared in 1980 in the Korea Journal (vol. 30[3], pp. 50-67 and vol. 30[4], pp, 57-67). The National Theater of Korea has published English, Japanese, and French translations of four or (in the French edition) five Ch'angguk libretti, lavishly illustrated with color photographs and supplemented with footnotes explaining cultural references: Ch'angguk of Korea (1995), Kankoku no ch'angguk (1995), and Ch'angguk de Coree (1996; all published Seoul: National Theater of Korea). Though not for sale to the general public, these may he available on application to the National Theater.
2. Pak Hwang, Ch'angguksa yon'gu (A Study of the History of Ch'angguk), (Seoul: Paengnok Ch'ulp'ansa,1976).
3. Paek Hyon-mi, Ch'angguk ui yoksajok chon'gae kwajong yon'gu (A Study of the Historical Development Process of Ch'angguk), (Ph.D. dissertation, Ewha Woman's University 1996), p. 5, n. 20.
4. Marshall R. Pihl, Putting Pansori on the Stage," Korea Journal 31 (1), (1991), pp.110-119, and The Korean Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 41-54.
5. Ch'oe Won-shik, Kaehwagi ui ch'angguk undong kwa 'Unsegye'" (The ch'angguk movement of the Enlightenment period and 'Unsegye'), in P'ansori ui ihae (Understanding p'ansori), ed. Cho Tong-il and Kim Hung-gyu (Seoul: Ch'angjak-kwa pip'yongsa, 1978), pp. 300-322.
6.Andrew Killick, "Putting P'ansori on the Stage: A Re-study in Honor of Marshall R. Pihl," Korea Journal 37(1), (1997), pp.108-130. This article was followed by, and may have prompted, what is partly a reply to it in the next issue of the same journal: Kim Jong-cheol, Some Views on the Evolution of Ch'angguk," Korea Journal 37(2), (1987), pp. 84-99. (Professor Kim, however, raises no argument that would lead me to revise my account of ch'angguk's origins.) To the best of my knowledge, the only other published articles on ch'angguk in English are two of my own: "Cracking a Rock with an Egg: Problems and Solutions for Korea's 'Traditional Opera' Ch'angguk," in Onji nonch'ong samjip (Onji Institute Research Papers, Vol. 3: A Festschrift for Cho Nam-kwon), ed. Cho Kyo-ik (Seoul: Onji Hakhoe, 1997), pp. 279-309; and "A night at the Korean opera," Morning Calm 20(6), (1996), pp. 38-44.
7. Marshall R. Pihl, The Korean Singer of Tales, p. 21.
8. Pak Hwang, Ch'angguk-sa yon'gu, pp. 17, 45-46, 63, 67; see also Marshall R. Pihl, Putting P'ansori on the Stage," pp. 113-117, and The Korean Singer of Tales, pp. 45-49.
9. Paek Hyon-mi, Ch'angguk ui yoksajok chon'gae kwajong yon'gu, p. 5, n. 20.
10. Ch'oe Won-shik, "Kaehwagi ui ch'angguk undong kwa 'Unsegye'," pp. 317-320.
11. Substantial evidence for this is presented by Paek Hyon-mi, op. cit., pp. 56-74.
12. The activities of the Korean Vocal Music Association and its successors have been described in detail by Yu Min-yong in his article "Choson songak yon'guhoe wa ponkyok ch'angguk undong" (The Choson Songak Yon'guhoe and the Full-fledged Ch'angguk Movement), Kugagwon nonmunjip 7 (1995), pp. 209-236.
13. Yu Min-yong has given details of these pro-Japanese ch'angguk productions: op. cit., pp. 229-230.
14. Pihl makes this claim both in his article "Putting P'ansori on the Stage'" (p. 111) and in his book The Korean Singer of Tales (p. 42).
15. See Paek Hyon-mi, op. cit., pp. 22-23, 69-72.
16. A leader in this revival has recently published her memoirs: Hong Song-dok, Nae ttus-un ch'ongsaniyo: Hong Song-dok chajon esei (My heart is the green hills: autobiographical essays by Hong Song-dok). (Seoul: Hanttut, 1996). This book includes chapters on the history of yosong kukkuk and its revival (pp. 135-155) which are helpful, given that no serious research has yet been done on the genre. The only published source in English is a journalistic article of my own in Korean Airlines' in-flight magazine: Andrew Killick, "The Secret of Korean Women's Opera," Morning Calm 21(7), (1997), pp. 32-39.
17. Korea's Intangible Cultural Properties system has been the subject of a valuable study: Jongsung Yang, Folklore and Cultural Politics in Korea: Intangible Cultural Properties and Living National Treasures (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1994).
18. For detailed discussions of the National Ch'angguk Troupe's productions, see Song Kyong-nin, "Hyondae ch'angguk-sa" (A history of modern ch'angguk), in Kungnip kukchang samshimnyon (Thirty Years of the National Theater), (Seoul: National Theater of Korea, 1980), pp. 335-366; Paek Hyon-mi, "Kungnip ch'angguktan kongyon ul t'onghae pon ch'agguk kongyon taebon ui yangsang (The development of ch'angguk libretti as seen through productions of the National Ch'angguk Troupe), Han'guk kuk yesul yon'gu, 7(3), (1993), pp. 171-195.