Composer Huang Ruo

Photo of HR

Huang Ruo (https://www.huangruoprojects.com) has been a friend of CHF since the 2010s when he visited the Twin Cities during his work at the American Composers Forum in St. Paul.  He was just a budding composer of operas then. Ten years later and, with several acclaimed operas under his belt (An American Soldier, M Butterfly, and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, etc.…) he began a conversation with SF Opera about creating an opera (or a series of operas) based on Journey to the West: The Monkey King.  In this age of super heroes in the movie and game world, Huang felt passionately that young Asian American kids need a super hero of their own.  What better than an all-powerful, but mischievous and fun-loving, monkey that has already been a celebrated and loveable icon in Chinese literature for more than four hundred years?

Huang Ruo was born on Hainan Island, China, in 1976, the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up during the 1980s and 1990s and attending the Shanghai Conservatory he absorbed the music of the western classical masters as well as that of the Beatles, heavy metal as well as rock and roll.  Following winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland, he came to the U.S. to attend Oberlin Conservatory of Music, followed by the Juilliard School. 

He currently serves on the music faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is the artistic director and conductor of Ensemble FIRE.  His compositions include works for vocal and chamber music, but he soon began to focus on opera, and has received Rae reviews, including this one in the NY Times: ““…Few works mingle different elements so ambitiously as Paradise Interrupted. That this 80-minute opera proved so alluring and powerful is due largely to the inventive and personal music of its composer, Huang Ruo.”

CHF is pleased to underwrite Huang’s commissioning fee for composing The Monkey King and, witnessing the overwhelming standing ovation on Opening Night, feels amply rewarded in having been a part of this creative process.

Librettist David Henry Hwang

David Henry Hwang is one of the most successful Chinese American writers and librettists  in the U.S.  His works encompass books, plays,  operas, musicals and TV and films (M Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, etc.) He needs no introduction to our CHF audience.  We first encountered him when we invited C Y Lee, author of the book Flower Drum Song, to attend the MSP premiere of DHH’s adaptation of the Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical based on this novel (https://chfmn.org/2009-3/).  It was fun to witness CY Lee’s approval of DHH’s  updated version of this musical!  (insert photo https://chfmn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2009-3_3_20131107_1087244894.jpg)

Then when we initiated the Dream of the Red Chamber Project with SF Opera in 2011, David was the unanimous choice for librettist.  He had already collaborated with composer Bright Sheng before and readily agreed to be the co-librettist with Bright on the complex task of condensing this huge sprawling novel into a compact opera.

In 2022, when SF Opera decided to take on turning another beloved Chinese sprawling novel, The Monkey King, into an opera, the task facing the creative team was a bit different.  Instead of tackling the entire novel in one go, they decided to just devote this first attempt to the first three chapters of this novel: a much more manageable task and David was happy to accept this new challenging role as librettist.  In addition, he had already worked with designated composer Huang Ruo several times and developed an easy working relationship that was evident and reflected in the final seamless libretto.