I. A Chinese Classic Comes to Spectacular Operatic Life

By Joshua Barone

“Underestimate the Monkey King at your peril…He is, basically, a superhero.  And as superheroes go, he’s one of the oldest, with a story preserved in the thousands of pages of “Journey to the West,” Over time, he has appeared in comics and graphic novels, TV shows and movies. Even in video games.”

“It’s a production that has been given resources to pull off a jaw-dropping feat of music theater, making a thrilling case for the vitality and potential of opera on a grand scale.”

“The Monkey King” is an artistic triumph for the creators and performers alike. But congratulations are especially in order for San Francisco Opera, which has a recent track record of presenting shows that speak to its local audience with the ambition of an opera capital: works like Bright Sheng’s “Dream of the Red Chamber” and Gabriela Lena Frank’s “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,” not to mention anything by John Adams.”

“Huang has described “The Monkey King” as a “third culture” opera: neither Eastern nor Western, and definitely not an attempt to marry the two. Rather, it is something new, the natural product of intersecting cultures and layers of influence.”

“the Monkey King, in a performance of thrilling physicality and heroic musicality by Wang….

“Konu Kim, who brought an almost comically pleading, Italianate tenor to the corrupt Jade Emperor.” 

“Diane Paulus brings a touch of Broadway fluidity to the production. She cleverly conjures the many worlds of “The Monkey King” in silk, 4,500 yards in all, that rise and fall in sheets, wave like water and float weightlessly like clouds.”

“ingenious puppetry by Basil Twist, whose contributions to the show are in gorgeous conversation with Huang’s music.”

II. A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera

By Thomas May

“The figure of the Monkey King has long been a cultural touchstone not only in China but across Asia“

“Asians and Asian Americans were put into a negative spotlight because of the pandemic,” Huang Ruo said. “I wanted to bring a positive energy and light to the world that sees us differently.”

 “It made me realize my children needed a hero they could call their own,” he said, “a Chinese counterpart to Spider-Man… I use the term ‘third culture’ for what happens when these two cultures (Chinese and European) are integrated so that a new one is born — something beyond left and right, more than binary. That is the music I write.” Huang links this concept of a third culture with what he calls dimensionalism, his neologism for how he sees art and life itself. When cultures or characters intersect, new layers emerge.”

“Matthew Shilvock, SF Opera’s general director, said that the success of The Monkey King has prompted the company to think about how to build “a canon of works that could have equal resonance on both sides of the Pacific.”

“Librettist David Henry Hwang thinks of Huang Ruo as someone who represents a new generation that understands both cultures and builds on the Chinese American work that came before. I think the classical music world is ready to embrace a new generation of cross-cultural composers with roots in both places.”

“To Director Diane Paulus, the story’s spirituality finds visual form in the silk-and-fabric puppets by the puppeteer Basil Twist.  Through Basil’s work, that message comes alive: The silk becomes water, then clouds, then horses in the heavens. We wanted the sets to have a sense of poetry — transformational silk and air became our guiding visual metaphor.”