A Night at the Chinese Opera

Published Monday 14 April 2008 at 10:15 by George Hall

Judith Weir’s first full-length opera, premiered in 1987, receives its first staging in Scotland - and very welcome it is.

It’s a clever and resourceful piece, set in the China of Kublai Khan, where the orphan Chao-Lin witnesses a performance of a Chinese opera that reveals to him his own origins and the dark fate of his father at the hands of a corrupt general. Searching for the truth, he journeys into the mountains to meet the mysterious Old Mountain Dweller, but is captured and sentenced to death for treason. The last scene presents the final scene of the previously interrupted Chinese opera, which shows a different and far more positive ending.

It’s a piece that plays with the audience’s expectations while keeping them entertained, notably by some brilliant versions of Chinese folk music and a parody of Italian opera in the aria of Marco Polo.

Lee Blakeley’s pacey production, with intricate and witty designs by Jean-Marc Puissant, and the strong cast, many of whom double up, present highly individual characterisations. The opera-within-an-opera is a comic tour-de-force, but the show also makes you think - about truth and fiction, fate, and both ancient and modern China. Immediately accessible and yet thought-provoking, this is one of the finest British operas of recent times. Sian Edwards conducts with sensitivity and vitality.