It seems that Dream has caught the eyes of the world. Numerous music critics, from the Economist, Financial Times, the Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and many others descended on the San Francisco Opera House. So did critics from many prominent Chinese newspapers. These reviews were picked up by many other newspapers and websites, including ForeignPolicies.com.

An op-ed article that appeared in the influential Shanghai newspaper, Guangming Daily deserves special mention. The writer, a board member of the Chinese Cultural Critics Association, understood that the mission of Dream was to bring the best of Chinese cultural heritage to the world stage.  He marveled that the initiative came from Chinese Americans in the U.S. and not internally from China, and agreed with Matthew Shilvock, General Director of San Francisco Opera, that Dream was a SFO star-studded sophisticated in-depth production.  Highly encouraged by this first successful landmark artistic adaptation of classic Chinese literature into English, the writer went on to envision a future where many more such cultural projects will follow this path-breaking one, where we will truly integrate Chinese and American cultures in a two-way manner, and where more in-depth studies of the splendor in Chinese culture will lead to more similarly successful artistic creations for the world stage.  He also particularly likes the fact that Dream is ‘coming home’ to China.  Chinese culture is no longer simply just a one-way outreach ‘export’ from China any more.  It has now become part of humanity’s world cultural heritage, attracting a new audience in new ways.  Taking a long view, the writer concluded that it no longer matters whether expositions of Chinese culture originate in China or overseas, he hopes that with Dream marking the beginning, there will be many, many more such efforts, with positive outcomes, to promote the understanding of Chinese classical literature throughout the world in the future.

San Francisco Opera has assembled a spreadsheet (16 pages long) of press notices, as well as a book of highlights from these notices and reviews. Please check back as Dream travels to Hong Kong in March 2017 for its Asia premiere!