Met simulcast of "The First Emperor"

[bart]

I just returned from the latest Metropollitan Opera simulcast -- this one from the world premiere run of Tan Dun's "The First Emperor," with Placido Domingo in the title role. For me it was visuallyl stunning, musically uneven, sometimes moving and sometimes clumsy in terms of drama. At our theater it was, once again, a sold out crowd that was attentive, knowledgeable, and willing to stick around during the curtain calls to applaud the performers and creators.

What did you think?

[Haglund's]

I just returned from the latest Metropollitan Opera simulcast -- this one from the world premiere run of Tan Dun's "The Last Emperor," with Placido Domingo in the title role. For me it was visuallyl stunning, musically uneven, sometimes moving and sometimes clumsy in terms of drama. At our theater it was, once again, a sold out crowd that was attentive, knowledgeable, and willing to stick around during the curtain calls to applaud the performers and creators.

What did you think?

It's The First Emperor. I have not seen it, but did have the opportunity to listen to the simulcast on WQXR today. As expected, it was challenging simply for its lack of hummable melodies. But it is highly interesting. Placido sounded great -- very seasoned, very royal. When he sounds as good as he did today, I think it's worth sitting through a marginal or even bad production to hear him. I hope to attend one of the final performances.

[SanderO]

Are the Met simulcasts going to be re shown or released on DVD?

[bart]

Thanks, Haglund's. I don't know how I managed to call this Emperor "New" and "Last" in such a small amount of text -- and despite having the Met's radio program guide in front of me. :blush: It's Qin Shi Huang (often called the Qin or Chin emperor) whose tomb contains the famous army of terracotta figures.

I've corrected both errors on my original post, thanks to you.

P.S. Here's a Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang

[Haglund's]

Bart, the opera was sung in English, but I couldn't understand a word of it. Could you understand any better in the movie theater? Maybe The Met should include subtitles for this production.

[Ed Waffle]

“The First Emperor” is an opera by Tan Dun, directed by Zhang Yimou with choreography by Huang Dou Dou of the Peking Opera set design by Fan Yue and libretto by Ha Jin had its world premiere a few weeks ago at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. We attended the show on Saturday at a theater in the suburbs of Detroit. While sung in English it had absolutely necessary subtitles.

It was extremely impressive technically and artistically. This is a most interesting use of digital technology and one that might just catch on—the theater where we saw it had been sold out for a week. Any world premiere at the Met will have buckets of money thrown at it and in this case it wound up on the stage. Sumptuous costumes, jaw-dropping set design, brilliant lighting—it was all there. The cast was as good as any could be with reigning superstar Placido Domingo in the title role, Elizabeth Futral as his daughter, Haijing Fu (who we saw as Rigoletto here in Motown years ago when his career was just getting started) and Michelle De Young, true luxury casting, in a relatively small role as the Shaman. Even given that depth of talent, Wu Hsing-Kuo as the Yin-Yang Master came close to stealing the show. Wu is a veteran of the Peking Opera and Tan Dun’s music for him was filled with the nasal tones and octave spanning vocal slides particular to that art form. He created his character through movement—sometimes sensuous, sometimes funny and always amazingly graceful—while singing on pitch and in time which was not something one often encounters on an opera stage. He had energy, stage presence and star power to burn, even given the galaxy of talent with whom he shared the stage.

The opera is the story of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of the title, the man who united China and began construction of the Great Wall, a story that resonates throughout Chinese history and which has been told many times. Tan Dun based his libretto on the screenplay for the Mainland movie “The Emperor’s Shadow” and also on the works of the ancient scholar Sima Qain. It has everything that grand opera should have—love, death, betrayal, duplicity, self-sacrifice—but the libretto itself is not very good. In the first act it shifts from historically important affairs of state—nothing less than the unification of China—to the domestic drama of the Emperor’s crippled (although ravishingly beautiful) daughter and her betrothal to the court’s favorite general. The second act was tighter dramatically although structurally pretty clunky with two major characters appearing as ghosts to narrate the circumstances of their deaths. One imagines this is not the final version of libretto.

Most important, of course, is the music. Tan Dun spent some of his early years in rural China after his parents ran afoul of the dictates of the Cultural Revolution. He has written that this is where he learned about the ancient percussion and string instrument of China, essentially his first musical education. In New York as a student he went to the opera constantly and learned to especially love the long lyric lines of Italian music drama. “The First Emperor” shows both of these influences—the stage band is made up entirely of Chinese instruments including pairs of stones that the percussionists rub together. The choral writing is ravishing although it was impossible for me not to hear (or think I heard) some echoes of Turandot—there are only so many ways of combining the traditional Chinese pentatonic with the western diatonic, western harmonies and Chinese melodies—but that is far from important. The chorus was the most important character in the opera, commenting or taking part in the action and its slave songs supplying the basis for the final anthem that the Emperor wanted so badly. The arias for the Emperor and Yue-Yuang, his daughter, are solid and memorable and Michelle De Young as the Shaman has some lovely music.

Confucius taught that music unifies people in shared enjoyment and is both a cause and effect of peace and harmony. While post-Enlightenment western culture seems to be the opposite of Confucian hierarchies our feeling toward music seems much the same.

[dirac]

Thank you for the long review, Ed. Good to hear from you.

[bart]

Yes, thanks Ed. For me, the most moving aspect of these productions is the shared communal experience of sitting in a darkened movie theater, surrounded by a full-house of people genuinely absorbed by and enthralled by a real-time performance. Michigan and Florida -- all the same, all at the same time.

After only 3 operas -- in 3 weeks -- conversations were developing and information was being exchanged at a level of closeness and shared enthusiasm that ordinarily happens only after a year or two of sitting next to fellow-subscribers at live performances. I heard many comments about the artistic, technicological, and even spiritual wonder of it all.

I loved the experience, but was not so fond of music and (especially) libretto as you. Some of my own impressions:

-- The, along with the high-defnition camera work, were sensational. Thinking back to Ghosts of Versailles, I guess the Met thinks that the only way to get an audience hooked on a newly commissioned work is to astound them with lots and lots of color, detail, opulence, and movement. Did I actually count 156 chorus members during the first Act -- standing as they were on risers, separated and framed by the hundreds of ropes (hung from above) that were the real visual stars of the piece.

-- I liked the Chinese elements of the score -- and the Peking Opera staging of those portions -- more than those which adopted a more standard Western musical language. (The latter were deocrated by Tan Dun with endless and repetitive chinoiseries.) Act I, dominated by Wu Hsing-Kuo as the Master of Yin-Yang, was especially rich in Chiese music and style. The use of Chinese instruments (a multi-string zither, ceramic pots struck with sticks, stones rubbed together, drums struck with stones, an eerie instrument resembling a lantern and played with a bow, etc. etc.) were wonderful. So was the use of the orchestra's Western instruments to produce Chinese sounds. The Met players actually had to vocalize from the pit at several points.

-- I thought that Domingo was wonderful. His voice is almost reinvented. He domiinated the stage, even when required to stand around while others took over -- and when required to follow some of the illogical and unllikely gyrations of the plot (especially in relation to the various ways he is asked to respond to the fact of his unmarried daughter's liaison with the composer Gao Jianli..

-- There was one major dance performance -- I think it was by Dou Dou Huang, whose name raced by during the creditsat the end. Combining a certain amoung of classical stuff (strange developes, an incredible series of pirouettes on the flat, barrels turns, etc.) wth Chinese circus acrobatics, it was striking.

-- I could have done without the very long and repetitive settings of "conversation," in which virtually every syllable was sung to several notes, sliding up and down.

-- The story itself -- about what happens when a rule sacrifices human relationships for consquest and self-glorification -- would probably work better as a written fable in the style of Kafka or Borges than it did as the basis for a long and somewhat long-winded libretto. For example, much is made of the Emperor's wish to have his former foster brother compose an "anthem" that will glorifiy and creation of an Empire and establish a new musical aesthetic. When the anthem is playd at the end of the opera, it is not at all what the Emperor expected. Instead, it's a repeat of a song (for me, the most beautiful in the entire piece) that was sung in Act II by the poor, exploited Chinese people who were forced to labor in the construction of the Great Wall. The irony here was telegraphed unsubtly earlier on. No surprises here, except for those out on a popcorn break.

-- The intermissions included a positively giddy interview of Domingo by beverly Sills, and one of the most interesting dicymenbtaries I've ever seen about how a complex opera production is put together. Tan Dun teaching Domingo how to articulate and stress a single, crucial word -- and Domingo's dogged effort to do it correctly -- were priceless.

I know that the Times and New Yorker gave this generally negative reviews. As for me: I wouldn't have missed those 3 and a half hours at the Regal Palm for anything.

[dirac]

Bart, the opera was sung in English, but I couldn't understand a word of it. Could you understand any better in the movie theater? Maybe The Met should include subtitles for this production.

Always a good idea, even if the work is in English, IMO.

[sandik]

Bart, the opera was sung in English, but I couldn't understand a word of it. Could you understand any better in the movie theater? Maybe The Met should include subtitles for this production.

Always a good idea, even if the work is in English, IMO.

I saw a screening of the Taymor Magic Flute here in Seattle last night, and agree about the subtitles -- the production is in English, but the titles were a great help during some of the more showy phrases (more about vocal excitement than diction per se)

We had a great time in the theater -- I was so glad they arranged to screen it here at last!

[bart]

Speaking of Domingo's darkening and descending range, our local paper reports that in 2009 he wll be singing the baritone title role in Simon Boccanegra at the Berlin Staatsopera, La Scala and the Royal Opera. He's just had his 66th birthday, so he'll be 68 by then. Previously he sang the tenor role of Gabriele Adorno (for the first time in 1995 at the Met).

[Helene]

This means Domingo will come full circle, because he started as a baritone.

[dirac]

Speaking of Domingo's darkening and descending range, our local paper reports that in 2009 he wll be singing the baritone title role in Simon Boccanegra at the Berlin Staatsopera, La Scala and the Royal Opera. He's just had his 66th birthday, so he'll be 68 by then. Previously he sang the tenor role of Gabriele Adorno (for the first time in 1995 at the Met).

He's a true phenomenon, especially given the amount of singing he's done over the years.