Tribute to Anita Mui
Free web-services, as advanced as they are, still have the annoying trend of acting-up whenever it wants to. Even though I was successful incorporating Chinese text in previous posts, the WordPress system doesn’t allow me to do so anymore. So I beg your indulgence, dear readers, to make out the original Chinese titles of the following songs; you can always click-through to the YouTube website to find out.
Not opera-related.
30th December 2007 marks the 4th year Anita Mui has left us from Breast Cancer. Actually I had only come to know her music after reading about her passing, an event that received coverage in many papers, magazines and TV programmes in its time, a collective tribute to the place she has taken in our hearts.Despite my late start, I had quickly came to understand what Anita Mui was all about: that instantly recognizable low-alto voice that comes with a heavy dose of attitude, snazzy dance moves complemented by flamboyant costumes, and especially, the heavy touch of pathos she injects into her torch songs. But above all, it is her desire to live life to the fullest that has stood her out among her peers.
Witnessing her last concert on video, an event that took place as she was going through the final stages of breast cancer, was at once heart-breaking and a testament to her unwavering willpower. Emaciated and adorned with wigs to disguise the effects of chemotherapy, she still found the strength to give the run of 8 concerts her best voice that now proudly stands among her other outstanding live videos. As she walks up a long flight of stairs after her last number, aptly titled Song of the Sunset, one gets the message, loud and clear, that she had decided to leave this world with the biggest bang that any artiste can muster.
So as a tribute to this extraordinary artiste, The Mad Scene presents to you a live clip of Anita singing the popular communist anthem Blood-stained Glory, sung in 1992 with not a heavy dose of irony in tribute the victims of the Tiananmen tragedy. Politically-vocal entertainers may be commonplace in the western world, but in the enclosed world of Chinese-canto pop such opinionated remarks will cause no end of controversy to the artiste. Anita’s outspoken criticism of the Tiananmen event is just another reason why the public loved her so much while she was still alive, as well as winning the respect of her peers as a shining example to follow. Like all legendary performers, there will never be another one like her. RIP Anita!
The last number of her last concert, Song of the Sunset
Warning: This video contains huge amounts of morbidity that will seriously give you the creeps, watch at your own risk.