OPERA

FENG YI TING

AMERICAN PREMIERE FIRST STAGED PRODUCTION

CO-PRODUCED BY SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA, CURRENTS–ART & MUSIC, AND LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL

Composed by Guo Wenjing Sung in Chinese with English supertitles

First Performance March 6, 2004; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dock Street Theatre May 27 and 29 at 8:00pm; June 1, 4, and 7 at 8:00pm

SPONSORED BY BMW MANUFACTURING CO.

Conductor Ken Lam Director Atom Egoyan Scenic Designer Derek McLane Costume Designer Han Feng Lighting Designer Matt Frey Video Designer Tsang Kin-Wah Projection Designer Cameron Davis

CAST (in order of vocal appearance) Diao Chan Shen Tiemei Lü Bu Jiang Qihu

Supernumerary William Stancil

MUSICIANS Pipa Chen Yihan Dizi Hong-Da Chin Erhu, gaohu Wang Guowei Sheng Wang Hong Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra

Assistant Conductor Aik Khai Pung Assistant Director Kara Riopelle Production Stage Manager Becca Eddins Scenic Construction Spoleto Festival USA Scene Shop Costume Construction Shanghai Sheng Xie Co., Ltd. Libretto Translator Jiang Yipeng Libretto Editor John Githens

PERFORMED WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION.

Additional support for Feng Yi Ting is provided by The Asian Cultural Council, The Brand Foundation of New York, Inc., and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Opera programming is endowed by the Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation.

Currents–Art & Music is grateful for the support of Oscar L. Tang, the Tang Family Foundation, and its board members, for their contributions, namely, Barbara Goldsmith, Marie-Monique Steckel, Christopher Enock, Barbara Hoffman, and Sarina Tang.

By arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes Inc., Sole Agent in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for Casa Ricordi/Universal Music Publishing Ricordi S.R.l., publisher and copyright owner.

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE GUO WENJING (composer) was born in In her prologue, a beautiful courtesan reveals a plan that will 1956 in China’s Sichuan province. In 1978 change the history of a nation. What is immediately striking about he was one of 100 students admitted out Guo Wenjing’s arresting interpretation of the classic tale of Feng of 17,000 applicants to Beijing’s reopened Yi Ting is the rich artistic alchemy of the work—the powerful Central Conservatory of Music. Unlike many setting of traditional vocal lines against contemporary musical colleagues from this acclaimed class (Tan tonalities. This approach gives us a sense of the story’s past while Dun, Chen Yi, Zhou Long), Guo remained exploring new ways of expressing it. in China after graduation except for a short Designer Derek McLane and I first worked together 16 years stay in New York on an Asian Cultural Council ago on a production of Richard Strauss’s revolutionary opera grant. Guo’s catalogue includes four chamber operas. Wolf Cub Salome. Like Feng Yi Ting, Salome is a story about a woman Village (1994), based on Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman, was who concocts a sexual plan that ends in violence and murder. premiered at the Holland Festival. Night Banquet (1997–98/2001), While the tone and motivations of these two stories are very inspired by a painting of Song dynasty court official Han Xizai, was different, both center on women who become increasingly first produced in London and Hong Kong; a second version of the resistant to men’s efforts to educate them. Both Salome and the work was also given in Paris, Berlin, New York, and Perth. Feng Yi courtesan Diao Chan have an appointed station in the ancient Ting (2004), written for a Beijing opera tenor and a Sichuan opera civilizations in which they live, and both take possession of men’s soprano, premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Poet Li imposed cultural campaigns. In the respective stories, there is a Bai (2007), an opera about the famous Tang dynasty poet, received war fought very much on the battlefield of words and images, its world premiere at Central City Opera’s Summer Festival. Guo’s with extraordinary music giving us access to the psychological music first became known in the West in 1983, when Suspended underpinnings of the provocative narratives. Ancient Coffins on the Cliffs in Sichuan was premiered in Berkeley, In the mid-’90s, Derek and I used the technologies available California.His orchestral works include concertos for erhu, bamboo to us to augment the story of Salome with visual projections. flute, violin, cello, and harp; Shu Dao Nan, a symphonic poem with At the time, we were still working in a largely analog world, and voices; and Journeys, for soprano and orchestra. Guo’s chamber the projections were a combination of 16mm film, glass slides, music includes works for traditional Western string quartets and traditional shadow play. Theatrical tools have changed and percussion ensembles; Late Spring for Chinese ensemble; radically since then, and this production of Feng Yi Ting utilizes and Sound from Tibet, combining instruments from China and the the sensitive digital manipulations of the Hong Kong–based artist West. He has also composed numerous scores for Chinese cinema Tsang Kin-Wah to visually convey the complex strains of the and television. Guo Wenjing has been honored as one of China’s vocal lines. The seductive effect of words set to such powerful Top 100 Living Artists. and emotive music is enhanced by the graphic and “living” representation of the text itself. CREATIVE TEAM In conversations with costume designer Han Feng, we further explored the sharp contrast between old and new that was at KEN LAM (conductor) is the winner of the the heart of this production. We decided to move away from the 2011 Memphis International Conducting image of the female character as mysterious and unfathomable, Competition. Currently he serves as Orchestra and present her as a confident and contemporary figure. Although Director at Montclair State University in New she is a masterful manipulator of desire and affection, Diao Chan Jersey, Resident Conductor of the Brevard Music is not presented as a classic seductress. The very manner in Center in North Carolina, and Artistic Director of which she conveys her plan to us suggests a disturbing matter-of- the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestra. Lam factness, which is cool and unexpected. was Principal Conductor of the Hong Kong This telling of Feng Yi Ting is quite unlike the fin-de-siècle Chamber Orchestra from 2001 to 2007, and spectacle of Salome where a woman kills her “lover” out of made his U.S. professional debut in 2008 with the National Symphony distorted passion. This is a story of carefully planned murder; a Orchestra at the Kennedy Center as one of four conductors selected sexual coup d’état. Though we might recognize Diao Chan as a by Leonard Slatkin. The following year, he was a featured conductor in classic femme fatale, she is ultimately serving a plot which has the League of American Orchestras’ Bruno Walter National Conductors been carefully laid out before her. Feng Yi Ting condenses classic Preview with the Nashville Symphony. Lam has also appeared with operatic themes of passion, jealousy, and revenge into a compact the Cincinnati, St. Louis, Memphis, Illinois, and Baltimore symphony machine. It’s the aim of this creative team to display the workings orchestras. Last season he gave concerts with the Hong Kong of this machine in all of its ruthless and beguiling efficiency. Philharmonic, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and Taipei Symphony Orchestra. – Atom Egoyan In opera, Lam regularly conducts with the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard and was Assistant Conductor at both Cincinnati Opera and Baltimore Lyric Opera. He was Assistant Conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival for two Britten chamber opera productions. Recently he led an acclaimed production of Massenet’s Manon for Peabody Opera Theatre. Lam studied economics at St. John’s College, Cambridge University, and worked in international law and record label management before embarking upon his career in music.

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ATOM EGOYAN’s (director) films have MATT FREY’s (lighting designer) recent work includesLonely? I’m been presented around the world, winning not… for Second Stage Theatre, The Ugly One for Soho Rep, Close five major prizes at the Cannes Film Festival Up Space for Manhattan Theatre Club, and Go Back to Where You (including the Grand Prix), two Academy Are for Playwrights Horizons (New York); 7 Homeless Mammoths Award nominations, and numerous other Wander New England for Two River Theatre (New Jersey); This for honors. His films have won over 25 Genie Center Theatre Group (Los Angeles) and Playwrights Horizons (New Awards, including three Best Film awards, York); Middletown for Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago); from the Academy of Canadian Film Woodysez (London’s West End); and Freefall at the Corn Exchange and Television. Egoyan’s work has been (Dublin). Frey’s upcoming projects include Dog Days, directed by presented in several international retrospectives, including a Robert Woodruff for Peak Performances (Montclair State University, complete career overview at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, New Jersey). He has also collaborated with Brooklyn Academy of followed by similar events at the Filmoteca Espagnol in Madrid Music, Naked Angels, The New Group, Manhattan Class Company, and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. Before his New York Theatre Workshop, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Paper film career, Egoyan wrote and directed plays in his hometown Mill Playhouse, as well as many other theaters, regional and abroad. of Victoria and then in Toronto, where he was part of the inaugural Playwrights Unit at Tarragon Theatre. He returned HAN FENG (costume designer) is to stage directing in 1996 with Salome for the Canadian Opera one of the world’s leading clothing and Company, a production later presented by Houston Grand Opera accessories designers, increasingly sought as well as several other successful remounts. His original opera after for her costume and exhibition Elsewhereless, with music by Rodney Sharman, received over designs. She has made her mark in opera 30 performances throughout Canada, and was nominated for creating costumes for Anthony Minghella’s six Dora Awards by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. celebrated production of Madama Butterfly In 1998 Egoyan directed the world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ Dr. for the Metropolitan Opera, English National Ox’s Experiment for English National Opera, and also directed Opera, and Lithuanian National Opera; The Richard Wagner’s Die Walkürie as part of the Canadian premiere Bonesetter’s Daughter for San Francisco Opera; Handel’s Semele of The Ring Cycle, winning the Dora for Outstanding Production. at La Monnaie in Brussels and with the Canadian Opera Company; On the occasion of Samuel Beckett’s Centenary Celebration in and Miss Fortune at the Bregenz Festival in Austria and London’s 2006, Egoyan’s acclaimed interpretation of Beckett’s Eh Joe was Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Her costume design activities presented by The Gate Theatre in Dublin, later transferring to have expanded into the realm of film through her role as costume London’s West End (with Michael Gambon and Penelope Wilton) consultant for the recent remake of The Karate Kid, directed by and remounted as part of the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival in New Harald Zwart and starring Jackie Chan. York (with Liam Neeson). For this production, Egoyan won the Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Direction. Earlier this year, DEREK McLANE (scenic designer) has Egoyan directed the North American premiere of Martin Crimp’s dazzled Broadway audiences with his designs play Cruel and Tender for Canadian Stage. Egoyan has been for Follies, Nice Work if You Can Get It, The knighted by the French Government, received State Honors from Best Man, Anything Goes, How to Succeed in the Republic of Armenia, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. Business Without Really Trying, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Million Dollar Quartet, CAMERON DAVIS (projection designer) is Ragtime (Tony nomination), The Pajama a Toronto-based theater and film artist. His Game (Tony nomination), 33 Variations (Tony projection designs include Cruel and Tender in Award), Grease, The Threepenny Opera, Little collaboration with director Atom Egoyan for Women, I Am My Own Wife, Barefoot in the Park, Lestat, The Canadian Stage; Swimmer (68) for Hopscotch Women, Present Laughter, London Assurance, and Holiday. His Collective; Imprints for Theatre Gargantua; Off-Broadway credits include A Lie of the Mind, Ruined, The Voysey The Book of Esther at the Blyth Festival; Inheritance, Two Trains Running, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and the Canadian Stage/Citadel Theatre Macbeth (Shakespeare in the Park), Hurlyburly, Aunt Dan and co-production of Rock ’n’ Roll. Davis’s video Lemon, What the Butler Saw, Servicemen, East is East, suburbia, designs have been featured in such productions as Dance Marathon The Waverly Gallery, Hello Again, Saturday Night, and the entire for the performance collective bluemouth inc; And Up They Flew Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center. McLane designed with Theatre Columbus; and Theatre Panik’s The Corpse Bride and Atom Egoyan’s production of Salome for the Canadian Opera My Name is Rachel Corrie. He served as lighting designer for The Company. His work has been seen at major regional theaters and Robbers at the University of Toronto; and as projections coordinator opera houses throughout the United States, and in London, Paris, on Red and Art for Canadian Stage, as well as for Volcano Theatre’s Dublin, Glasgow, Moscow, Krakow, Caracas, Sydney, Warsaw, and The Africa Trilogy at the Luminato 2010 festival. Davis was technical the Prague Quadrennial (2003 and 2007). In addition to his Tony advisor on Atom Egoyan’s film Adoration and production manager honors, McLane won the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Anything for Egoyan’s Luminato 2007 installation Auroras/Testimony. He has Goes and is nominated this year for Follies. He has also received two also served as production manager for Theaturtle’s productions of Obie Awards for Sustained Excellence in Scenic Design; three Lucille Alphonse, Kakfa and Son, and Snow Queen. Lortel Awards; and the 2003 Michael Merritt Award in Chicago.

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TSANG KIN-WAH (video designer) has CAST had solo exhibitions at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York JIANG QIHU (tenor, Lü Bu) was born and Paris, and the Chinese Arts Centre in in 1963 in China’s Jiangsu province. A Manchester (UK), among others, and has leading member of the China Peking Opera participated in various international group Company, he was taught by the legendary exhibitions such as the Asian Art Biennial Ye Shaolan. Jiang won the Mei Lan Fang 2011, Aichi Triennale 2010, 17th Biennale of Gold Award in 1993, and the Ministry of Sydney, Tenth Biennale de Lyon 2009, Drawn Culture honored him in 2000 as one of the in the Clouds – Asian Contemporary Art at the KIASMA Museum of nation’s Leading Young Artists, among many Contemporary Art (Helsinki), The State of Things at the National other accolades. Career highlights include Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo), and Memories the title role in a revival of the classic Zhang Xie Yuan (Zhang of the Future at the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul). Xie the Scholar) from the southern Song dynasty, directed by Tsang is a recipient of the 2007 Tokyo Type Directors Club Prize China’s leading stage director, Lin Zhaohua; Guo Wenjing’s Night and the 2005 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, among other honors. His Banquet, which toured to festivals in Paris, Perth, New York works are found in key collections worldwide, including the DSL (Lincoln Center Festival), Berlin, and Beijing between 2001 and Collection, Deutsch Bank Collection, Mori Art Museum, Sovereign 2003; and the 2004 premiere of Guo Wenjing’s Peking opera Art Foundation, and Thomas Shao Collection. Hua Mulan under the direction of Li Liuyi at the Beijing Capital Theatre. Noted for leading roles in such traditional repertoire as Legend of the White Snake and Jade Pavilion, Jiang has also appeared in an experimental play based on stories by Lu Xun, and in a six-nation tour of Singapore director Ong Keng Sen’s King Lear. He made his international concert debut at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in the world premiere of Guo Wenjing’s Feng Yi Ting in March 2004, broadcast live on Dutch radio. Jiang reprised his role in Feng Yi Ting for the Cologne Triennale in 2007.

SHEN TIEMEI (soprano, Diao Chan) comes from a family with a long tradition in Sichuan opera performance. She began performing at a young age, and her golden voice and dedication to her art have earned her acclaim as “First Lady of Sichuan Opera.” A skilled a cappella performer, her unique vocal quality has elevated Sichuan opera to a new artistic level and introduced this art form to Europe for the first time. She creatively juxtaposes traditional performance style with contemporary staging, offering Sichuan opera a more immediate meaning and depth. Shen is also a keen ambassador for Sichuan opera, with visits to the United Kingdom, United States, and France, and a tour of over 20 cities in Europe. She is also the first person to utilize orchestration for Sichuan opera. Shen Tiemei is a three-time recipient of the Plum Flower Award (China’s highest distinction for theater performance), the Wen Hua Performing Award, and numerous other honors. In addition to performing, she has served as Artistic Director of Chongqing Sichuan Opera House, Vice-Chairman of the Drama Association in China, a parliament member of the National People’s Congress, and a member of the Democratic National Construction Association Central Committee.

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MUSICIANS WANG HONG (sheng), an internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, has CHEN YIHAN (pipa) was born in Wenzhou, performed with Meredith Monk for her China, and graduated in 1995 from China opera Atlas, with the Shanghai Broadcasting Conservatory in Beijing, where she later Orchestra in the world premiere of Tan taught. As a pipa soloist in the Hua Xia Dun’s 2000 Today, with Opera Boston in the Chamber Ensemble and Music from China, world premiere of Zhou Long’s Madame she has performed at festivals in Asia, North White Snake, at many international music America, and Europe, including Festival festivals, and with orchestras including the de Création Musicale, Festival Avignon, Le Berlin Philharmonic, Neubrandenburg Philharmonic, Freiburg Festival Musique en Scène, Encontros Acarte Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. As a “musical ’98 Portugal, Cité de la Musique, Lotus Festival, and Winnipeg archaeologist” (Los Angeles Times), he visited many master folk Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival. Chen has collaborated musicians in mainland China, most notably visiting Inner Mongolia with such renowned composers such as Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Chen twice to collect traditional songs and music from the grassland. Qigang, and Bright Sheng. She has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the He is also self-learning a legendary Mongolian string instrument, Kennedy Center, and other leading venues. Her recordings include the morin khuur (or matouqin). As a multi-instrumentalist he has The Brahmin, Three Images of Laughter, Time to Listen, Zhou performed on the soundtracks for the Nickelodeon network’s Long: Tales From the Cave, and Hua Xia. Chen was a prizewinner Kung Fu Panda and Korra. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Wang is at the 1989 ART Cup International Chinese Music Competition currently working on several new music projects. and the 1995 Freedom International Chinese Music Competition.

HONG-DA CHIN (dizi), a native of Malaysia, plays the dizi (Chinese bamboo flute) and the Western flute. Chin has toured Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with the Malaysian National Symphony Orchestra and the Professional Cultural Center Orchestra. His major solo performances include Whisper on the Wind, a recital inaugurating the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Music in 2010, and Love Within the Flute, a Chinese bamboo and Western flute recital in Malaysia in 2007. Recently, Chin was invited to perform at the Migratory Journeys World Premiere Concert sponsored by the Chinese Fine Arts Society and the Civitas Ensemble in Chicago. Also a composer, Chin is currently a Bomhard Fellow at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, studying composition with Steve Rouse and flute with Kathy Karr.

WANG GUOWEI (erhu, gaohu) studied at the Shanghai Conservatory and was formerly concertmaster and erhu soloist of the Shanghai Traditional Orchestra. He has served as artistic director of the New York–based ensemble Music from China since 1996. Also maintaining an active solo career, he has performed with the Virginia Symphony; Continuum; Amelia Piano Trio; DaCamera of Houston; Ethos Percussion Group; Ornette Coleman; Butch Morris; Kenny Garrett; Yo-Yo Ma; Present Music; the Shanghai, Ying, and Todd Reynolds string quartets; 3rd Angle New Music Ensemble; Post Classical Ensemble; Brooklyn Philharmonic; and Opera Boston, among others. Wang Guowei has taught erhu and Chinese music ensemble at Wesleyan University, New York University, and currently at Westminster Choir College at Rider University.

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