The voice of a once beautiful and young singer has gone forever. A big star of the ancient cai luong has come to rest. Out there, a smile on the face of an artist or a comedian has vanished. In here, an iconic singer, an actress is no longer filled with sorrows…

I was dazed in the rainy days. At the age that one would anticipate a journey of performance far away, but this morning when I looked up the sky, I could not believe and accept a farewell and the games of birth and death.

In the stillness and quietness of space and time, I could clearly hear the beats of the song loan.  I started to sing along the soft and solitary music… Dear thou, my hair is a tangled mess. My eyes are wet with tears. I came here with no fear of long nights or a deep grave. I am only afraid of the footprint of my loved one faded in the mist of the forest… I don’t know whether I caused any sorrow to anyone in my past life so that I got a karma in this life. Until death, I would still be empty handed. The little joy has gone… I was abandoned by my parents when I was a little. Then life treated me badly like a water-fern drifting on the river…

No string musical instruments, no drums, nor an idiophone, there was only the sound from my recollection about my admiration of her. I kept singing along and leaning on each of her acute accents, grave accents, and even the flat accents. Her voice was as clear as crystal. It was like a golden silk being drawn from her heart to millions of listeners. The breathtaking flat accent was her vocal aptitude. It belonged to her, the Moping Queen Ut Bach Lan, and it always will.

To me, in the 50 years of my singing career, two singers who, stood out with a perfect pronunciation in cai luong, were People’s Artist Ut Tra On and Artist Ut Bach Lan. I was very influenced by these two iconic singers in how to tune my vocals and keep the beat. Interestingly, no one with talent or creativeness could logically explain how musical art works were produced from just the five notes – ho, xu, xang xe, cong.

Within these five notes, she had wonderfully mastered three of them, (ho – cong – xang). There were thin lines going from conversation to dialogue with music in the background, then to singing, but she always executed it skillfully.

Each sentence, each word, when being sung by her, had its own melody – affection, openness and generosity. I listened, absorbed, and devised the meaning and compassion in each word. I wanted to express my deepest gratitude to Artist Ut Bach Lan and uncle Muoi (People’s Artist Ut Tra On) for inspiring me.

Her singing voice was filled with love and sentiment. It was not so strong as a powerful stream.  It was soft and gentle as a small spring but it brought all kinds of emotion. It received the admiration from other artists and audiences throughout the years.

One thing, I mentioned a couple of times before, was that some glorious singing voices make you fall in love so much,that you forget you are watching a performance. Two of many golden female singers of cai luong were Artist Ut Bach Lan and the late Artist Thanh Nga.

I wanted to tell you the words from People’s Artist Phung Ha. An eyebrow raise, a look-down, or a look-up with sad eyes could make the audience shed tears. The artists do not make a grimace, cry out loud, or scream, but the audience can still feel the sadness and grief.

Thus, sometimes I asked myself what if she just let her characters show the struggles or she just made a loud piercing cry, then she probably would not have to swallow affliction in silence in her life. But then, I thought, would her scream be able to express all sorrows that an artist with a fragile soul and a generous heart like her had carried all her life?

Many people have said in the past, especially on the last few days after she passed away, that her sad singing voice cumulated her life experience. Perhaps it was so. The afflatus of “giving a path” that no one wishes for challenged one’s life to the very end.

I don’t really believe in that “afflatus”, because would that heartbroken voice be the cause of her sorrows? Many changes happened in life. Many unforeseen events took place.  Plus, she was a person with a generous heart that made her miserable sometimes. Aren’t all of them accounted for? I believe that bringing a melancholy voice to everyone and receiving their love and appreciation, to an artist like her, is a joy and an endless happiness.

I believe that through personal ordeals and through the traditional music, an artist would refine themselves, light up the torch of love and genuine compassion, and incline to the good… And as the song she sang before, her life was filled with a “little joy”. She was never “empty handed”, and never had the lack of love…

People’s Artist Bạch Tuyết – Phụ Nữ Newspaper (07/11/2016)