Musical salute to the first emperor

During the Chinese premiere of Symphony of the First Emperor, Tan invited an old friend to attend, scriptwriter Lu Wei, who is also a native of Xi'an.

Back in the 1990s, when Tan studied on a scholarship at Columbia University, New York, where he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1993, he was introduced to a Chinese movie by his wife. The movie, The Emperor's Shadow, which is about the friendship between Qinshihuang and Gao, as well as the love between Gao and Qinshihuang's daughter, Princess Yueyang, was directed by Zhou Xiaowen and the script was written by Lu Wei.

Chinese actor Jiang Wen played the role of Qinshihuang, actor Ge You played the role of Gao and actress Xu Qing portrayed the princess.

"I was intrigued by the ambitious story of Qinshihuang and his relationship with the musician, who has great talent and a pure passion for his art. When the Metropolitan Opera House commissioned me to write the opera, I soon proposed an idea based on that story," recalls Tan.

When Tan met the scriptwriter, he was surprised to find out that Lu Wei had not only carried out lots of research about Qinshihuang and the story between the emperor and Gao, but is also a music lover who travels around Shaanxi to collect folk music.

"Tan loves Qinqiang Opera, so do I. I love humming Qinqiang Opera pieces when I write scripts," says Lu Wei. "When I watched his opera, The First Emperor, some parts were very similar to the movie, but others were beyond my imagination."

One of the most memorable parts in the opera, as Lu Wei recalls, was having Peking Opera actor Wu Hsing-kuo playing the role of the Yin-Yang Master, a narrator, who outlines the story through a striking mixture of singing, dancing and acrobatics against a backdrop of Chinese drummers and a chorus. Wu's performances featured elements of Qinqiang Opera.

"For Symphony of the First Emperor, Tan creates an amazing balance between Western music and Chinese music. Though the music is abstract, he uses it to tell a very romantic story" Lu Wei says.