A Night at the Chinese Opera - Scottish Opera

Scottish Composer Judith Weir’s breakthrough work was A Night at The Chinese Opera, first performed at the Cheltenham festival in 1987, and now performed in Scotland for the first time, by Scottish Opera.   In 1986, a young Sian Edwards stood in for Simon Rattle and made her operatic conducting debut with Scottish Opera performing The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany, and she returns to Glasgow to conduct this opera.    Director Lee Blakeley returns to Weir, as he directed the Opera School performance of The Vanishing Bridegroom across the road at RSAMD not so long ago.

The story is a 13th century Chinese Fable about the Chao family.    In essence, Chao Lin as a baby is abandoned by his parents who are fleeing invaders.   The child is brought up by neighbours, and becomes a renowned canal builder under the new regime.    He chances upon a group of actors and sees a play performed, which for him has renonances about who he is.    He travels up a mountain to where the original exiles have since tried to eek out an existence, and comes down again, ready to take on the invaders, but is caught and returned to the city.

Musically, this is very accessible, with some intersting scoring for a pared down orchestra, particularly for the woodwind and percussion.    There is singing and spoken words as well, and often rhythmic unison is used, producing a strange effect - particularly when the counter-tenor Military Governor and his personal soldier a deep bass sing together.   

The singing was good for the most part, with Damian Thantrey as Chao Lin and Philip Salmon as the Nightwatchman and Marco Polo in excellent voice.    Special mention to Rebecca de Pont Davies, Sarah Redgwick and Stephen Chaundy for the three ‘actors’ in the play within the play for putting on a memorable and entertaining performance. 

Visually, this was convincingly Chinese without overdoing it, and director Blakeley, designer Jean Marc Puissant and  Jenny Crane on lights came together as a team.    This is the first opera in English that I have been to which had surtitles, and it did actually help.    Some of the singing was a little light and occasionally the orchestra covered the voices.    Having said that, I really enjoyed Edward’s animated conducting and the orchestra’s performance.

But all in all, this was a good night out, and short and sweet at 2 hours running time.    I am still not quite sure that I followed all the detail of the story, particularly in the second half, but this was a good example of modern opera done well.    Surprisingly enjoyable.