The Peony Pavilion (opera)

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 newly composed two-hour opera by Tan Dun mixing Chinese and western forms and instruments.^[1][2]

Recordings

Sony Classics released a 1998 CD, Bitter Love: A Song Cycle sung in English by Ying Huang and the New York Virtuoso Singers based on portions of the score for Part Two.^[3]

References

1. 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 ...""
2. 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 .."
3. Tang Xianzu Mudan Ting introduction Page 30, translation by Cyril Birch 2002 "... hours to Chen Shi-Zheng's production and another hour to the making of it; Sony has released a CD, Bitter Love: A Song Cycle (based on the opera Peony Pavilion), that features Ying Huang singing portions of Tan Dun's score for Part Two."