The opera, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York in 2003, tells the story of an orphan's revenge against those who killed his family members when he was an infant.
Written by Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) dramatist Ji Junxiang, it was one of the first major Chinese plays to be translated into European languages. However, in his adaptation, Chen has blurred the backdrop of the opera's time and location.
Through a series of workshops with a group of American actors and designers, a writer and a composer, Chen attempted to create a new form of theater expression that was "neither Western nor Chinese, but rather a new kind of theater," in which these elements could equally coexist yet remain transparent.
The Orphan of Zhao is the last part of a trilogy of Chinese classics created by Chen in 2001. He wrote them with the aim of sharing Chinese literary treasures on the world stage, "because a classic Chinese story deserves to be told to the world over and over again, and not just by the Chinese," he says.
As for the music, Mike Smith, an English music producer and musician, who is the music director for Chen's production of The Orphan of Zhao, says: "My approach was to make the music sound more contemporary and less traditional. We wanted to move away from the familiar music syntax of the East both instrumentally and harmonically and make it sound really cool."
Smith first met Chen on the director's operatic stage production, Monkey: Journey to the West, an adaptation of Chinese classic novel, Journey to the West by Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) writer Wu Cheng'en.
The production was staged at the Manchester International Festival in 2007 and Chen worked along with British musicians Damon Albarn and British artist Jamie Hewlett, the creators of the virtual band, Gorillaz. Smith, who has worked with Albarn for over 20 years, re-orchestrated the work for a largely electronic ensemble, and mixed it with standard orchestral instruments.
"I find working with Chen always forward-thinking. We have moved the story 'along' and not settled on a traditional context for both the libretto or the music," Smith says. "Shakespeare is an international literary giant. This story from The Orphan of Zhao is the same. We can all relate to it and understand it in whatever context it is presented. That's what is so exciting about being involved with this production. Everyone will get something out of it."
