CHÂU LA VIỆT

The author, with adoration, briefs singer Lê Gia Hội’s and Ngọc Tân’s life and carreer,
to which he expresses some regrets. Lê Gia Hội and Ngọc Tân,
             in fact, are the singers who sang about Hanoi beautifully.

      Keyword: Châu La Việt, New music, Ngọc Tân, Lê Gia Hội, Songs about Hanoi

• Singer Lê Gia Hội

I clearly remember what happened forty years ago, on the day I moved from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Before I left, I went to see my friend Lê Gia Hội, a very kind opera singer. Hội took me to a diner, offering me a farewell-bowl of phở (which was an extravagant meal at that time). Eating the hot phở, I felt emotional and moved by his kindness to me.

When we went to the railway station after that, I saw Ngọc Tân waiting for me at the gate. My close friendship with Hội and Tân made me almost cancel the move to Hồ Chí Minh City. For a moment, I thought of just spending the rest of my life in Hanoi with my best friends. 

Lê Gia Hội and Ngọc Tân were talented singers at that time. Hội worked for the Opera House of Choral Symphony, and Tân was a staff member of Musical Troupe under the Voice of Vietnam. Both of them were Hanoian elite intellectuals as I know. Noticeably, they sang the songs about Hanoi with special emotions. Ngọc Tân was famous for singing the song “Hanoi and I” with the symbolic sentence that everyone knows today, “ngõ nhỏ, phố nhỏ nhà tôi ở đó” (the little hamlet, the small street, my house is there). Whereas, Lê Gia Hội marked his name with the song “The Voice of Hanoi” by composer Văn An, which once gave us fighting spirit in the war:

Tôi đứng đây bên nhịp cầu Long Biên lộng gió
Dưới chân cầu Hồng Hà vẫn ngàn năm sóng vỗ

Meaning:

I am standing here windswept on the Long Bien bridge

Under the Red River, waves have been surging for over a thousand years

Hội’s voice was a flexible but strong tenor that embodied the Hanoi of “steel and poetry”. In 1974, Vietnam Television planned to broadcast the dancing drama, The Line of Spring Trees on the first day of Lunar New Year. The drama’s music was composed by Chu Minh, and I (twenty-two years old) wrote the drama’s script. After finishing the script, I insisted that director Phan Lưu had Lê Gia Hội play the protagonist, who was a soldier. Thanks to talented composer Chu Minh, director Phan Lưu, choreographer Trần Minh, opera singer Lê Gia Hội, and dancers from the eighth class of the School of Dance, the drama was successfully performed and became famous, making talanted dancers Đặng Hùng,Vương Linh,Thúy Loan, Danh Long and Thúy Huyền recognized by the public. That was also the first time artist Lê Gia Hội, who basically had settled down in the opera sanctum, got a chance to perform on television and became famous.

Since that time, many of the artists who performed The line of Spring trees have been given the title of People’s Artist. However, it seems that Lê Gia Hội, with his prominent talent and lifetime contribution to the field of drama of Vietnam , has not received the attribution that he deserves. 

But dear my friend Hội and Ngọc Tân, your voices are always in the audience’s heart, and your kindness to friends, including me, has never
been forgotten.

• Singer Ngọc Tân

I befriended Ngọc Tân when I left the battlefield to go back to Hanoi after the liberation of Southern Vietnam. At that time, Ngọc Tân was a normal member of the Choir under the Music Troupe of the Voice of Vietnam. Though his humbleness makes him seemingly quiet, everyone quickly found that he was irresistible graceful when they really talked to him.

It needs to be stated that there were many new emerging talented singers. Most of them were professionally trained at Vietnam School of Music (later Hanoi Conservatory of Music, and present-day Vietnam National Academy of Music). Some famous singers were Quang Huy, Quang Thọ, Ái Vân and Lệ Quyên from the Central Music and Dance Theatre; Dương Minh Đức, Lê Dung and Doãn Tần from the Vietnamese People’s Army; Trọng Nghĩa, Bích Thảo and Huyền Châu from Hanoi Music and Dance Theatre; Thanh Hoa, Vân Khánh and Hữu Nội from the Musical Troupe under the Voice of Vietnam where Ngọc Tân worked; and the early famous singers, namely Trần Khánh, Trần Thụ, Tuyết Thanh, Thu Phương. Ngọc Tân, unluckily, did not get this advantage of professional training.

One day, as a gem hidden under the sand incredibly sparkles when it is uncovered, Ngọc Tân stepped out of the Choir, auditioning and winning the special prize at the musical contest Human and the Sea. He shortly became the most wanted singer. Every stage desired Ngọc Tân’s presence and people from everywhere were eager to listen to him. Theatres and Art Troupes opened wide their gates to him, and the audiences looked forward to his performance each night that they turned on the television or radio. Ngọc Tân was undoubtedly one of the most honored singer at that time. He, a truly precious gem, was adored by so many people.

Surprisingly, Ngọc Tân decided to leave Hanoi while gaining this considerable fame and pride. On the day that he left, I was in Ho Chi Minh City.

One afternoon when some artists and I from Ho Chi Minh City visited the War Zone D in Mã Đà, composer Trần Tiến suddenly murmured to my ears: “Ngọc Tân escaped over the border”. I was totally dumbfounded. I spent the whole windswept night long in Mã Đà thinking about Ngọc Tân and the threats he might have encountered on the ocean.

…Bạn ra đi tôi đã mất bạn rồi
Ta mất nhau trong tình yêu thứ nhất
Ta mất nhau trong tình yêu Tổ quốc
Ngã ba nào nơi ta phải chia tay?

     Cho sóng hãy bình yên
Cho gió hãy bình yên
Xin tất cả dồn vào tim tôi hết
Dẫu lầm lỗi mạng người là quý nhất
Biển khơi ơi, xin bão tố bình yên…

Meaning:

I lose you when you are gone

We lose each other for the first love

We lose each other for the love for our country

Where is the turning point of farewell?

May the waves kiss your feet

May the wind be at your back

Let my heart hold all the risks

No sinner deserves to die

Human life is the most valuable

May the sea be calm and hurricane retired

But God did not listen to my prayers. Shortly, I heard that the ship containing Ngọc Tân’s family faced an oceanic storm. He saved his son but lost his wife to the cold heart of the sea.

Ngọc Tân was thirty-one years old when the marine incident happened. The peak and abyss. The glory and bitterness. He obtained many things but lost more. He now was faced with the consequence that he never thought of before: being jailed!

His life in the prison, as told by Ngọc Tân, was physically more comfortable than the others thanks to his singing, but he still suffered heavy mental torment about the incident. It turned out that his prison days were actually better than what he found when he was released. He found that performances were banned, and the house that had belonged to him on that familiar street had been confiscated. With bare hands, a broken family, a motherless son, a dead career, and unemployable, some might think of committing suicide. But Ngọc Tân was not that desperate yet. He was quite determined to rebuild his life.

Ngọc Tân taught music to Musical Troupes of some provinces in Đà Lạt, holding the hope that someday he could come back to the stage. Going to Ho Chi Minh City, using the stage name Bảo Hà (the combination of his son’s name and his wife’s name), he performed a duet with Trần Tiến in the song The flame of Central highland, one man howling and the other blowing horn, totally seducing the audience. Those were the very hard times to Ngọc Tân when he still performed as a freelance artist. Fortunately, he got the admission to join the Lotus Art Troupe, and his career blossomed.

Working for the Troupe, he could gracefully perform on huge stages. He dedicated his loving voice that carries many emotions of his struggles in life to the audience. He loved the  audience in Ho Chi Minh City and local audiences there treated him with special care. Ngọc Tân partnered with Sĩ Thanh in a very good duet for the Lotus Art Troupe at that time.

Ngọc Tân performed in many places, including Ho Chi Minh City, provinces in Southern Vietnam, provinces in Northern Vietnam, Hanoi, and even abroad, which was most surprising to him, because he thought that he could never go abroad after his attempted escape over the border during the war.

Later, he married a Hanoian woman, and they had a daughter. Ngọc Tân became the happiest man with his wife, son and daughter. He loved his family very much and was wholeheartedly dedicated to his family.

At the age of fifty, Ngọc Tân still made considerable contributions to music. He perfomed in many places around the country and in other countries. His liver, unlike his strong desire to dedicate to music, began to decay, throwing him into a fight against the disease. Trying to stay strong, he forcefully insisted on pursuing his life.

It really was a pity that our beloved artist did not win this challange. He passed away at fifty-six, ending his life in which he experienced both glory and bitterness, but the most worthy to mention was his wonderful voice, which expressed the vicissitudes of his life and his strong spirit to fight against hardships.

Many artists in the same generation with him also passed away at middle age, such as Tiến Thành, Hữu Nội, Lê Dung and Sĩ Thanh. Many others lived far from the homeland, such as Vân Khánh, Huyền Châu, Ái Vân and Lệ Quyên. And some others has been living in Vietnam, warming life with their voices, such as Quang Thọ, Quang Lý, Quang Huy, Dương Minh Đức, Thanh Hoa, Trung Đức and Thu Hiền.

Everyone was dumbfounded at the news of Ngọc Tân’s death. A short time before his last breath, he sang beautifully, attracting all audiences, in Tuần Châu. When he performed in Hải Phòng, he was warmly welcomed by everyone, including a taxi driver who insisted on driving Ngọc Tân for free because he was a big fan.

And on his last album, Hanoi in the Farewell Day, his voice is still earnest, passionate, and youthful. Someone who does not know the singer may either come to the conclusion that it is a fifty-six year old artist’s voice or think that it is the last song of a phoenix.

Time goes by; ten years have passed since that day, and the memories still
are strong.