The Peony Pavilion (opera) explained
The Peony Pavilion is a 1998 production by Peter Sellars, in a mix of Chinese and English translation, of the Ming Dynasty play The Peony Pavilion.
Part One is an avant-garde staging of the traditional Kunqu form of Chinese opera's staging of the play, which is how the play is usually performed in China. Part Two is a specially-composed two-hour opera by Tan Dun, mixing Chinese and western forms and instruments.[1] [2]
Recordings
Sony Classics released a 1998 CD, sung in English by Ying Huang and the New York Virtuoso Singers based on portions of the score for Part Two.[3]
Notes and References
- The Poetics of Difference and Displacement Page 134 Min Tian - 2008 "The main component of Part Two of Sellars's Peony Pavilion is Tan Dun's composition of a two-hour opera. Tan's music exemplifies the simultaneity, diversity, and heterogeneity of postmodern culture, which "has absolutely no cultural ...""
- The Rough Guide to Opera Matthew Boyden, Nick Kimberley, Joe Staines - 2002 "Few composers embrace the implications of a global musical culture as wholeheartedly as Tan Dun, born in China but ... The second, Peony Pavilion (1998), a collaboration with director Peter Sellars, tells an ancient Shanghai opera love story .."
- [Tang Xianzu]