The Santa Fe Opera's 64th Season was scheduled to present 39 performances of five operas, including the world premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly; two company premieres, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Dvořák's Rusalka; Steven Barlow's inventive new production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville; the revival of Tim Albery's much-loved production of Mozart's The Magic Flute; and two Apprentice Scenes performances. The 2020 Season reflected the time-tested programming model pioneered by Santa Fe Opera founder John Crosby: a balanced and varied repertory of new, rarely performed and standard works portrayed in a new light. All other activities and services, including theater tours, preview dinners, shuttles, tailgate picnics, prelude talks, opening night dinners, opera storytellers summer camp, adult learning seminars and the Tristan und Isolde symposium, have been canceled.
Opera
Philip Glass and David Henry Hwang's new opera with Cirkus Cirkör premieres at Malmö Opera in 2021. /
In 2021, Circus Days and Nights will have its world premiere. A new opera by Philip Glass with libretto by David Henry Hwang and Tilde Björfors, based on a collection of poems by Robert Lax. Circus Days and Nights is co-produced by Cirkus Cirkör and Malmö Opera, with a world premiere at Malmö Opera May 29, 2021. The tour then continues to Stockholm, Hong Kong and venues in England, Norway, France and USA.
Let the world hear the aria of Baoyu -- English Opera Dream of the Red Chamber performs in Beijing /
Photo of English opera Dream of the Red Chamber, Photograph by Luo Wei, Guang Ming Daily.
Dream of the Red Chamber is the pinnacle of Chinese literature. But in fact, not many people in the western world have ever heard of it. In a certain sense, this opera is following a grand opera tradition, which began with Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Turandot, by blending eastern and western cultures. Before the English opera Dream of the Red Chamber, when people talk about Chinese-themed opera, they always first think about Turandot and the music Jasmine in that opera. Of course, the DaGuanYuan (Grand View Garden) in the English opera Dream of the Red Chamber is very different from the imagined Oriental world in Puccini's operas.
"In the 19th century of the western world, artists put the Oriental elements from their imagination into their works that were dominated by western values," says the playwright, David Henry Hwang. "But in our work, at least, we treat Chinese and western culture equally. Our work is not a hodgepodge, but a music work with distinctive features."
In the past 30 years, at least two TV shows have been adapted from Dream of the Red Chamber. "The popularity of the 1987 version of Dream of the Red Chamber in China is like BBC’s 1996 version of Pride and Prejudice (in the western world). It's certainly not a bad thing to have people re-discuss the novel because of an opera, in that way many people who have never heard of it now know it.” Hwang said, "It is important to let the world hear the aria of Baoyu."
Read more at Guang Ming Daily.