Peking Opera with a difference wows London audience

A production fusing traditional Chinese opera with Western classical music took place in London on Thursday, when a performance inspired by the life of Cai Lun, the man credited with the invention of paper, took place at the Jerwood Hall.

The performance, called Ein Heldenleben: Cai Lun, which translates as A Hero's Life: Cai Lun, was conceived, written and directed by acclaimed Chinese theatrical figure Chen Xinyi, best known for having devised the performance style known as symphony poetry drama.

Its soundtrack, performed by the Fidelio Orchestra conducted by Raffaello Morales, was music by 19th century German composer Richard Strauss, in a style called a tone poem.

This is a single continuous movement, made up of sequences similar to chapters or verses, rather than standalone movements, as in a symphony work.

Although Cai Lun's greatest contribution to civilization is his invention of paper, it is his life as an imperial court eunuch in the time of Emperor He of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), and the court intrigues in which he found himself involved, that caught Chen's imagination.

"He's a giant icon of China, whose invention changed human civilization and advanced cultural progress. But he also experienced misfortune in life that evoked my sympathy — he is a super-dramatic character," she added.

With biographical details hard to come by, she said, the piece is "inspired by his life, not a portrait of it — it's theater, not a history story".

Combining a tale and music written hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers apart may seem unlikely, but Chen said as soon as she heard Strauss's music and understood what it depicted, the pairing came together.

The piece is in six segments, illustrating the hero's journey through life and the triumphs and adversities he encounters along the way, which Chen said match Cai Lun's story.

"In 2019, I was rehearsing an opera at the National Theater of China and at the end of the day I was exhausted," she said.

"The orchestra manager came and said to me 'there's a performance tonight of something called The Hero's Life, you have to hear it'. I said no but he ended up pushing me there in a wheelchair.

"When I got to the venue I felt like sleeping but as soon as the music started, I began to get visions of Cai Lun, and then I read the program and saw the titles of the different sequences following his journey, and I could see how they fitted together."

Combining Chinese theater and Western music is something Chen has been exploring for the last 20 years, with eight symphony poetry dramas having been performed previously, but this is the first to come to the United Kingdom — something she had long wanted to do.

"This country is the home of William Shakespeare, who I admire greatly, and there is the connection between him and the great playwright Tiang Xianzu, who emerged in China at the same time," she explained. "Then, about 200 years ago, Europe saw the rise of symphonic music at the same time as China saw the rise of Peking Opera, which is a special art form that uses characters to express emotions in the same way that symphonic music does, so these are two great performance styles that I love to bring together, and London is a city where I particularly wanted to do it."