Time: 2008/9/10
Venue: NCPA-Concert Hall
Price: 280/380/580/880/1880/2080
Tel: 86-10-64177845
Email/MSN: ponypiaoen@hotmail.com

Online booking: http://www.piao.com.cn/en_piao/ticket_2143.html

InThe Gate, Tan Dun has taken doomed romantic heroines from Chinese,Japanese, and English literary theatre and musical classics, placingthem all within the same piece. In narrating their stories, each isrepresented by the musical and theatrical traditions unique to those ofthe heroines culture of origin; Koharu, 18th century Japanese theatre;Juliet, 16th century European theatre; and Yu Ji, 19th century PekingOpera.

Tan Dun further developed the ties between multimedia and multiculturalism in his work Orchestral Theatre IV: The Gate (1999).In this work, distinct musical and cultural traditions are integratedthrough the involvement of a female Peking Opera singer, a Westernoperatic soprano and a Japanese puppeteer. In contrast to thepre-edited video element in Orchestral Theatre III: Red Forecast, TheGate features live video images abstracted from the stage action as theperformance is in progress. An improvisational element is added byallowing the conductor and soloists to control the images appearing onthe screen. The Gate is a multidimensional work that combines new mediaand ancient theatrical tradition with music in a contemporary,performance-art setting. It represents a further evolution in theorchestral experience by establishing new links between the audience,performers, video and conductor, thereby intensifying the liveexperience and creating new, non-traditional roles for the orchestraand everyone involved.

Atthe gate through which souls must pass to reborn, three women whocommitted suicide for love await judgment in Tan Dun's fourthinstallment in the Orchestral Theatre series. Alongside Yu Ji, heroineof Farewell My Concubine (19th century Peking Opera), and WilliamShakespeare's Juliet from Romeo and Juliet (16th century England), Tan Dun has placed Koharu-san from The Love Suicides at Amijima by Chikamatsu (18th century Japan).The composer further elaborates: "There is such a terrible lack of lovetoday; resurrection for these three women seemed a very importantsymbolic task."