China is rapidly transforming the face of classical music as the country’s millions of performers and fans eagerly absorb its centuries-old traditions and simultaneously set about putting their own stamp on the form.
“We’re not talking a slight tremor here; this is a cultural earthquake,” writes James Inverne in the March issue of Gramophone magazine. “Our musical landscape – to whom we listen, to what we listen, perhaps the infrastructure itself – may be inexorably altered.”
Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the opera world, where in December the Metropolitan Opera in New York City presented the sold-out and much-publicized world premiere of Tan Dun’s “The First Emperor.”
Other Chinese operas are following close on its heels, including the Santa Fe Opera’s American debut of an earlier Tan Dun work and Central City Opera’s world-premiere performances of Guo Wenjing’s “Poet Li Bai” on July 7, 13, 15, 20, 26 and 28.
The new opera, based on the life of Li Bai, a celebrated Tang Dynasty poet, was produced under the auspices of Asian Performing Arts Colorado. Spearheading the project is bass Hao Jiang Tian, who will appear in the title role.
Here are four other notable opera productions this summer:
Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar,” Colorado Music Festival, Boulder. July 19 and 20. Because Golijov is one of today’s hottest composers, the Santa Fe Opera’s 2005 debut of his revised version of the one-act opera drew widespread attention. But not all reviews were positive. This concert version of the work, which revolves around the life of the martyred Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, will let Colorado audiences judge for themselves.
Tan Dun’s “Tea: A Mirror of the Soul,” Santa Fe Opera. July 21 and 25 and Aug. 3, 9 and 15. The love story, set in ancient Japan, was composed in 2002 and debuted in Tokyo. Noted Japanese director Amon Miyamoto will stage this American premiere, with baritone Haijing Fu in the central role of Seikyo.
Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Saint of Bleecker Street,” Central City Opera, July 21, 25, 27 and 31 and Aug. 3, 5, 9, 11, 15 and 18. This 1954 opera, set in New York’s Little Italy, received the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award and won Menotti a second Pulitzer Prize. It is one of the most celebrated works of the Italian-born yet very American composer, who died in February.
Francesco Cavalli’s “Eliogabalo,” Aspen Opera Theater Center, Aspen Music Festival. Aug. 14, 16, 18. Aspen’s talented preprofessional company will present the American premiere of the “Eliogabalo,” a long-lost work by the significant 17th-century Italian composer. This tale of the eccentric Roman emperor will be performed with a period-instrument ensemble led by noted conductor Jane Glover.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
