At the Met Zhang Yimou Directs Placidoo Domingo, Tan Dun in The First Emperor

From December 21, 2006 to January 25, 2007, the New York Metropolitan Opera House (Met) will welcome its first Chinese director in its 150-year history. Zhang Yimou, world famous for his films Raise the Red Lantern, Hero and House of Flying Daggers, will make operatic history when he directs The First Emperor. Oscar-winning Tan Dun will serve as the production’s composer and conductor.

In The First Emperor, Placido Domingo acts in the leading role of China’s first Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He unifies the country and begins his reign over China’s feudal society beginning in 221 BC. The opera, depicting the emperor’s life after unification, marks the first in which the renowned tenor Domingo is cooperating with a Chinese director. It is also the first opera based on Chinese history ever performed at the Met.

Zhang said, “The composer and conductor Tan Dun selected the story of the First Emperor and invited me to its director.” Zhang stressed that music is the core of the opera, and that its aria is its most important part. His role is to make the opera look more lively and attractive. “The Met wants to attract a young audience. So our team has focused on the opera’s art forms, such as stage set, light and costume,” Zhang said.

According to an October report in the New York Times, “Normally, for a new production, the Met allows one week in the summer for technical rehearsals––no orchestra, no singers––to test the set and to design the lighting before standard rehearsals begin. But for this elaborate staging of a sexy, violent, ghost-ridden tale of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, which is costing more than US$3 million, the Met set aside two weeks.

“About 250 plywood rectangular blocks, some as long as three feet each, are suspended from two ropes; in the final scene they become the building blocks of the Great Wall. Throughout the opera the blocks will be shifted, pushed, pulled, lifted and flipped, sometimes by the 90 members of the chorus and the 40 dancers, to create different scenes.

“The simulated stones hover above and beside an enormous black aluminium stairway, 36 steps high and resembling an enormous grandstand, which occupies the length and breadth of the stage throughout the opera. Most of the action takes place on the steps, which can become transparent, creating two visible worlds, one atop the structure and another beneath it.”

Other stage scenes include a Chinese carpet and bed for exclusive, imperial use along with vehicles ridden by the emperor at war. Domingo, soprano Rene Fleming (leading actress in the role of Meng Jiangnü, whose husband dies when building the Great Wall) and all the production’s other actors will wear traditional Chinese costumes. These are the creative practices of a predominantly Chinese, non-English-speaking production team led by Zhang.

The First Emperor is the second opera directed by Zhang Yimou; the first was Turandot, staged in 1998 in the Forbidden City in Beijing and conducted by Zubin Mehta. Zhang admitted his understanding of Western opera “is like how foreigners look at Beijing opera.” They don’t quite understand it, but they like it. Zhang said he first viewed an opera in Italy in 1997.

If compared with Peking Opera, Zhang said the plot of a western opera can be relatively simple, but communication with audiences should be realized by using good music, stage sets, lighting and costumes, with stage sets, lighting and costumes complementing the music. In other words, these visual elements serve the music and the plot.

Renowned for directing films, Zhang said he regards directing opera as a different kind of art experience. “The most striking difference is that opera has stricter rules and more rigid systems than those of film; every director must follow the rules. Unlike my first opera Turandot staged in the Forbidden City, the Met is the most professional and typical place to direct a real opera.”

As Emperor Qin Shi Huang was born and lived in today China’s northwestern Sha’anxi Province, Tan Dun will use local characteristics when creating his music. He conducted research in local libraries to better understand and interpret the people’s feelings and spirits of that time. He was also inspired by Xi’an’s famed terracotta warriors discovered in the 1970s in Sha’anxi Province. He believes that spirits embodied in the music are common and understandable to people from around the world. And this answers the question of whether Domingo can succeed in the role of  China’s first emperor.

It is a great challenge for Domingo, and he is quite excited by the role. Zhang described him as conscientious and energetic. No matter where he is, he calls Tan Dun almost every day to communicate, to discuss, and to better understand the musical spirit. Zhang said, “What Domingo sings is a combination of western opera, Beijing Opera and Sha’anxi Opera. The emperor’s loneliness can be sensed through the original music.”

Tickets for the first six shows at the Met have reportedly been sold out. The First Emperor is expected to come to Chinese audiences at the Great Wall in 2008, the year when Beijing will host the 29th Olympic Games.