The first-class failure

The First Emperor is a first-class failure. It has all right ingredients, spent all right amount of money, but turn out to be a soup no one likes. In the first Act, Tan Dun tried all kinds of innovative music elements (to western ears), such as traditional Chinese music instrument Zheng, drums, ceramic instruments. Each piece is great in its own way, but they do not come together as a good background for the opera. Sometimes, they become so peculiar and showoff that the audiences forget they come to attend an opera. Tan Dun also lacks the ability to control the melody for many vocal parts. The several arias among the Emperor, the Shamen, the General, Gao Jianli and Princess Yueyang are hard to appreciate. The second Act is much more coherent musically and adds more theatric intension. The final scene of inauguration of the first emperor is great, but too late to save the whole play.

The media called this play an occasion where “Peking Opera meets Grand Opera”. And the 10 year production period costed $2 million. The play stars Placido Domingo as the emperor Qin. NPR describes the effort as follows, “Tan Dun's cross-cultural compositions have also drawn attention in the last decade, as has his use of unconventional percussion instruments. He finds music in stones, water and paper”. New York Times gave very bad review, “Still, music drives the theatrical experience of opera, and Mr. Tan’s score is an enormous disappointment, all the more so because whole stretches of it, and many arresting musical strokes, confirm his gifts…….His music does sing. And sing. And sing. On and on. Whatever the mood of the moment, whether dreamy, defiant, sensual or tragic, as soon as the characters break into song, the melodic lines are inevitably long, arching and slow. Even when the orchestra bustles with intensity, the often cloying vocal lines hovering above still move with almost unvarying deliberateness. In the Italian operas Mr. Tan has in mind — say, Puccini’s “Turandot” — the pacing of vocal lines accords with the impetuosity of the moment and the flow of the words. Mr. Tan’s goal in this work, it would seem, was to create a ritualistic and hypnotic lyricism. But “The First Emperor” gives soaring melody a bad name.”

From this opera, you can imagine the opening of the 2008 Olympic game in Beijing. People mountain, people sea, but without a good melody!