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SCMP Reporter

Chinese composer Tan Dun's long-awaited opera Marco Polo will have its Hong Kong debut on February 15, to mark the opening of the 1997 arts festival.

    Already named 'opera of the year, 1996' by German Opera Magazine, Marco Polo was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival.

    The opera is billed as 'an exciting breakthrough in music and theatre, an innovative fusion of Western and Eastern styles that crosses boundaries musical, cultural and philosophical'.

  The cast includes Alexandra Montano, Thomas Young, Shi Zheng-chen, Susa Botti, Stephen Bryant, Nina Warren, Chen Don-jian, Daniel Reuss, Ya Dong, Wolfram Winkel, Al Gromer Khan and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Tan.

  'Did Marco Polo's journey actually take place? Did someone dream it up? Or did the journey imagine us? My colleague [Welsh writer] Paul [Griffiths] said it well - 'Journeys are like dawns in having no beginning or ending but only continuing', ' said Tan.

  'Marco Polo is everyone and everything - you, me and it.'   The theatrical performance contains many ethnic references, which give it a universal feel.

  Tan said: 'From medieval to Mongolian chants; from Western opera to Peking Opera; from orchestra to sitar, pipa and Tibetan ritual horns, the fusion of musical sounds from all corners of the globe is the definition of Marco Polo to me.'   To put words in the mouth of his hero, Tan sought out Griffiths, a well-known music critic and author of the widely translated A Concise History of Music and The Lay of Sir Tristram.

  His fictional work Marco Polo played games with time and space, setting the stage for Tan's concept of a visionary opera.

  'Of primary importance to me is that the production reflects the three journeys of Marco Polo, the concept of an opera within an opera, and that the production be simple and magical,' Tan said.

  The 'three journeys' are physical, spiritual and musical, he added.

  Marco Polo's famous historical journey was from Italy to China.

  While writing the score, Tan was keen to distinguish some of the characters.

  'Marco Polo and Kublai Khan may be the only historically costumed characters in the opera. They present the two extremes of the journey and should by costumed to highlight this medieval contrast,' he said.

  'Polo, Dante, and Rustichello should be costumed neutrally, that is outside the limitations of time, age and historical context.'   In spite of growing up during the Cultural Revolution, Tan, 40, is now famous as an artist of international influence and is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated Chinese composers living today.

  He has received many international awards and commissions, including the Glenn Gould Award and Japan's Suntory Prize Commission.

  His work has become the subject of television and film documentaries by the BBC, Finnish Television and Dutch Television.

  This magnum opus is directed by Martha Clark, a founding member of the Pilobolous Dance Theatre.

  She is seen as one of the world's leading contemporary choreographers and has directed works for Glimmerglass Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, the English National Opera and Brooklyn Academy of Music.

  Netherlands Dans Theatre, the American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet and Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project have performed her works.

  Clark's staging of Marco Polo is abstract and striking.



Stunning musical journey