DVD93812 Judith Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Video
Product Description
DVD93812 Judith Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Video
Judith Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Original Kent Opera production broadcast by the BBC
Words and music by Judith Weir Artistic director Norman Platt Music director Ivan Fischer From the Theatre Royal Bath
Nightwatchman/Marco Polo Tomos Ellis Military Governor Michael Chance Mongolian soldier Stephen Richardson Chao Sun/Fireman Stewart Buchanan Little Moon/Actor Meryl Drower Chao Lin as a boy Diccon Cooper Mrs Chin/Old crone Enid Hartle Old P'eng/Mountain dweller David Johnston Actors Frances Lynch Alan Oke Orchestra of Kent Opera Leader Susie Meszaros Conductor Andrew Parrott
Assistant conductor Timothy Dean Assistant producer Julia Bardsley Lighting Nick Chelton Designer Richard Hudson Stage director Richard Jones 1988 (date unknown)
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
Thirteenth-century China: Chao Sun, explorer and mapmaker, leaves his city of Loyan for exile. His son Chao Lin is charged with the construction of a canal. Some actors are among his workers. The night before departure they enact The Chao Family Orphan. In the play, the wicked General Tuan- Ku provokes the suicide of his servant Chao and his wife, leaving their young son an orphan. Unwittingly, the General adopts and raises the child.Twenty years later they conspire to overthrow the emperor. The orphan discovers his identity through a friend of his parents and vows revenge. After the play, Chao Lin's work on the canal is acclaimed. While surveying, Chao encounters an old woman who tells of his father's fate. Chao immediately plots revenge. © Judith Weir
Kenneth Loveland's report of the Cheltenham Festival production says: One had no trouble deciding the outstanding success of this year's Cheltenham Festival. If such a thing existed, the gold award would have gone to the world premiere of A Night at the Chinese Opera, an event that establishes Judith Weir, on her operatic debut, as a theatre com-poser of creative imagination, armed with the technical confidence and versatility to bring her ideas to fruition, original in thought and address, yet always in contact with her audience. The work has its roots in the Yuan dynasty plays of the 14th century, when the Chinese used their traditional theatre to satirize their Mongolian occupiers. The first of these to be translated and published in the West was Chi Chun-lsiang's The Chao Family Orphan, and this is at the centre of Weir's design. She prefaces it by an act in which a successful young engineer, Chao-Lin, is enrolled by the Mongols to build a canal. The second act is the play itself. Chao-Lin attends a performance, is disturbed to find that it mirrors his life up to that point and assumes that it must also foretell his future. He is wrong, and in the third act we see the sad consequences. In the outer acts Weir creates numerous opportunities for characterization and narrative, both caustic and comical. In the Chinese play itself there is a switch to marvellous clowning. Of all this, Richard Jones's production for Kent Opera took grateful advantage, supported by the simple but effective designs of Richard Hudson, so that what emerged was rich in fantasy, occasionally savage, often hilarious. The music is skilfully contrasted. Vocal lines flow, the orchestral sound is evocative, always relevant to situation, and in the more slimly-scored second act, the composer is unafraid to flirt with chinoiserie, though she does so with discipline. Gwion Thomas was a sensitive Chao-Lin, musing through his destiny, Michael Chance a military governor of dominant presence, Meryl Drower, Frances Lynch and Alan Oke clown-ed with inventive abandon. Andrew Parrott's keen conducting ensured lively playing.
Extracted from a DVD acquired in a trade. I have uploaded a DVD-ready VTS file but the quality of the 2nd or 3rd generation VHS transfer (probably including a conversion to NTSC) is flattered by the resulting 4.2G data file. It gives a reasonable impression of an iconic production but is recommended for enthusiastic fans only. So if anyone knows of a better source...?
Judith Weir: A Night at the Chinese Opera Original Kent Opera production broadcast by the BBC
Words and music by Judith Weir Artistic director Norman Platt Music director Ivan Fischer From the Theatre Royal Bath
Nightwatchman/Marco Polo Tomos Ellis Military Governor Michael Chance Mongolian soldier Stephen Richardson Chao Sun/Fireman Stewart Buchanan Little Moon/Actor Meryl Drower Chao Lin as a boy Diccon Cooper Mrs Chin/Old crone Enid Hartle Old P'eng/Mountain dweller David Johnston Actors Frances Lynch Alan Oke Orchestra of Kent Opera Leader Susie Meszaros Conductor Andrew Parrott
Assistant conductor Timothy Dean Assistant producer Julia Bardsley Lighting Nick Chelton Designer Richard Hudson Stage director Richard Jones 1988 (date unknown)
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
Thirteenth-century China: Chao Sun, explorer and mapmaker, leaves his city of Loyan for exile. His son Chao Lin is charged with the construction of a canal. Some actors are among his workers. The night before departure they enact The Chao Family Orphan. In the play, the wicked General Tuan- Ku provokes the suicide of his servant Chao and his wife, leaving their young son an orphan. Unwittingly, the General adopts and raises the child.Twenty years later they conspire to overthrow the emperor. The orphan discovers his identity through a friend of his parents and vows revenge. After the play, Chao Lin's work on the canal is acclaimed. While surveying, Chao encounters an old woman who tells of his father's fate. Chao immediately plots revenge. © Judith Weir
Kenneth Loveland's report of the Cheltenham Festival production says: One had no trouble deciding the outstanding success of this year's Cheltenham Festival. If such a thing existed, the gold award would have gone to the world premiere of A Night at the Chinese Opera, an event that establishes Judith Weir, on her operatic debut, as a theatre com-poser of creative imagination, armed with the technical confidence and versatility to bring her ideas to fruition, original in thought and address, yet always in contact with her audience. The work has its roots in the Yuan dynasty plays of the 14th century, when the Chinese used their traditional theatre to satirize their Mongolian occupiers. The first of these to be translated and published in the West was Chi Chun-lsiang's The Chao Family Orphan, and this is at the centre of Weir's design. She prefaces it by an act in which a successful young engineer, Chao-Lin, is enrolled by the Mongols to build a canal. The second act is the play itself. Chao-Lin attends a performance, is disturbed to find that it mirrors his life up to that point and assumes that it must also foretell his future. He is wrong, and in the third act we see the sad consequences. In the outer acts Weir creates numerous opportunities for characterization and narrative, both caustic and comical. In the Chinese play itself there is a switch to marvellous clowning. Of all this, Richard Jones's production for Kent Opera took grateful advantage, supported by the simple but effective designs of Richard Hudson, so that what emerged was rich in fantasy, occasionally savage, often hilarious. The music is skilfully contrasted. Vocal lines flow, the orchestral sound is evocative, always relevant to situation, and in the more slimly-scored second act, the composer is unafraid to flirt with chinoiserie, though she does so with discipline. Gwion Thomas was a sensitive Chao-Lin, musing through his destiny, Michael Chance a military governor of dominant presence, Meryl Drower, Frances Lynch and Alan Oke clown-ed with inventive abandon. Andrew Parrott's keen conducting ensured lively playing.
Extracted from a DVD acquired in a trade. I have uploaded a DVD-ready VTS file but the quality of the 2nd or 3rd generation VHS transfer (probably including a conversion to NTSC) is flattered by the resulting 4.2G data file. It gives a reasonable impression of an iconic production but is recommended for enthusiastic fans only. So if anyone knows of a better source...?
