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It’s not the first time that San Francisco Opera has lookedtoward China. There was the 2008 premiere of Stewart Wal-lace’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter with a libretto by Bay Area

native Amy Tan. And of course, there’s John Adams’ Nixon in China.Neither of those, though, could properly be called a Chinese classic.

By contrast, Dream of the Red Chamber, which has its world pre-miere on September 10, is not just a classic. To millions of Chinesereaders, it’s the classic. Cao Xueqin’s epic novel of ill-fated love amidsta prominent family’s spiraling decline has inspired numerous filmsand spoken dramas, two television series, and far too many Chineseoperas to count. But never before has the story made it—in English,no less—to the international operatic stage.

The creators of Red Chamber—the “Dream team,” if you will—are notable not just for their personal accomplishments but also thebreadth of their background. The range of perspectives fromMacArthur-winning Shanghai-born composer Bright Sheng, Tony-win-ning American-born playwright David Henry Hwang, American-bornTaiwanese director Stan Lai, and Oscar-winning Hong Kong-borndesigner Tim Yip are perfectly pitched to haul San Francisco audiences

DreamweaversAn all-star creative team transports an epic Chinese novel to the operatic stage

B y K e n S m i t h

into another culture and era. In this interviewwith Hong Kong-based Financial Times criticKen Smith, the composer, librettist, and directordiscussed the daunting task of tackling one ofChina’s most beloved novels as a 21st-centurymusical drama.

Dream of the Red Chamber is almost univer-sally known in the Chinese world but barelyregisters at all with readers in the West. Whatwas your personal relationship with the storybefore this project began? BRiGHT SHeNG: i first started reading Dream of the red Chamberwhen i was 12 or 13, about the same age as Bao yu in the novel.This was during the Cultural Revolution, and i wished that i toocould be surrounded by beautiful women and have his extrava-gant lifestyle. later on, in my late teens, i read the book again andbegan to appreciate the literary content. i still didn’t pay muchattention to the scholarly details until later. i’ve reread the bookevery ten years or so, and since i got the commission to write theopera, i read it through twice more. So now i’m a dilettante Redol-

ogist, which is what they call academics who devote themselves tostudying the novel. At least i could have a meaningful conversa-tion with a real Redologist.

DAviD HeNRy HWANG: i had no real relationship with the mate-rial. i mean, i knew it was one of the four great Chinese novels,along with The Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, and Journey tothe West. But my Chinese is horrible, so i couldn’t actually read itin the original language. And even now my knowledge of the bookis still pretty superficial. But i have the benefit of collaboratingwith Bright, who has a long history with the novel, and Stan,who’s digested Dream of the red Chamber throughout most of hisprofessional life.

STAN lAi: Dream of the red Chamber has resonated with me eversince i first read it as a freshman in college. Some of the story’sstructural sensibility has made its way into my own work, particu-larly the idea that something so simple and normal-looking on thesurface can underneath be very profound. Much of the profundity

in red Chamber comes from the way theauthor opens with the stone and the flower,which becomes a metaphor encapsulating ele-ments of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucian-ism—the three incredibly vast philosophicalsystems that work together in making up theChinese mind.

how did each of you get involved in the project?SHeNG: pearl Bergad at the Chinese HeritageFoundation in Minnesota had this crazy ideato do an opera of red Chamber in english. Thefoundation first approached Kevin Smith, thenpresident and Ceo of the Minnesota opera,who arranged a meeting with David Gockley,then still General Manager of San Franciscoopera, who approached me. And then iapproached David Hwang, whom i’d worked

with on other projects. He didn’t want to do it at first, but i per-suaded him.

HWANG: i said absolutely no, i’m not going to adapt this storyinto an opera, because it just seemed impossible. The book istwice as long as War and Peace, with more than 400 characters.How can you shape that into a two-and-a-half-hour show that hasany relationship to the source material or respects it in any mea-surable way? But Bright grew up in China during the Cultural Rev-

olution and i grew up in los Angeles, so consequently his will ismuch stronger than mine. First, he said, “At some point in yourlife, you have to read this book, so here’s your chance.” But moreimportantly, Bright had a vision of how to tell the story. So iagreed, provided we share the credit, since half the work of alibrettist is determining the structure.

SHeNG: i did a synopsis that David was very happy with, andafter that we worked very closely. i had a general vision, but hewrote every word. He was able to sketch rich domestic scenes andbring out the different personalities of each character in only a fewlines. That was masterful.

lAi: i came into the project after the first draft of the libretto wasfinished and immediately embraced the major choices that Davidand Bright had made. it was, i should add, a gross simplificationof the novel. The process is by definition rough to the author, evenif you’re being loyal to the story. So while there’s a big discount interms of detail, we’ve tried not to discount the novel’s profundity.

(Opposite page, from left to right) The “Dreamteam” of composer and co-librettist Bright Sheng,director Stan Lai, co-librettist David Henry Hwang,and (right) production designer Tim Yip.

“There’s a constant tension just below the surface, which later became a metaphor for the decline of imperial China—sort of like Downton Abbey of

the Qing Dynasty.” —Dream of the red Chamber co-librettist David Henry Hwang

We’ve established that Red Chamber is a teeming epic, even byoperatic standards. What did it take to restructure 2,500 pagesinto a manageable two-act opera?SHeNG: We all had long conversations about just what this novelis about, which is something not even Redologists can agree on. inopera, you have to boil down the material to one major element.The problem with War and Peace as an opera—and prokofiev wasan experienced composer—is that he wasn’t daring enough in hiscuts. in the novel, the love story was just a sideline. in an opera, ofcourse, you want to beef up the love story. you can’t disregard thepolitics, since that’s what the novel was all about. So, in the end,the opera tried to do both equally and lost focus. For us, redChamber is a love story. The main point isn’t the political intrigue,though we’ve kept that as the historical backdrop.

HWANG: it’s easier to talk about what we kept than what we jetti-soned. The love triangle, i think, is pretty universal. people can relateto that, and it’s essential and true to the novel. But we also have theJia family, incredibly wealthy but now in decline. There’s a constanttension just below the surface, which later became a metaphor forthe decline of imperial China—sort of like Downton Abbey of theQing Dynasty. And so elements that have to do with the politicalmachinations and how the emperor manipulates this corruption tobring down the family is a crucial sociopolitical aspect. And also, it’sjust good plot material, in a sort of House of Cards fashion.

lAi: We’ve entered this opera with the best intentions, which doesgive us some poetic license. For me, it was a process of discover-ing how to take something that might take up a whole chapter inthe novel and translate it into a single image on stage.

Audiences in San Francisco will surely be calling this a “Chinese”opera, but it resembles nothing that you’d see on stage in China.Do you think audiences there would find it “Chinese” enough?Was your goal to emphasize international storytelling with a Chi-nese story, or to bring a Chinese story to the international stage?HWANG: As the most “American” of the group, my role has beento bring an outsider’s perspective. one distinction i’ve noticedbetween contemporary Western and traditional Chinese story-telling styles is that the latter tends towards episodic narrative.in other words, traditional Chinese epics are a bit like pre-cabletelevision: chapters can often be viewed by themselves or out oforder without too much impact on the larger story. Translatingred Chamber into a Western dramatic mode involved steering

the action towards a climactic event.

Dai Yu

Bao Yu

Bao Chai

“I do not use detailed designs on the fabric itself, as in real silk brocade,”says Dream of the Red Chamber production designer Tim Yip. “Instead,my costume designs are more abstract, allowing you to sense the bodywithin—or perhaps the aura of character’s spirit.” Characters aredistinguished by different colors. For Dai Yu, green reflects her living quartersin the garden, surrounded by bamboo. The embossed gold patterns on BaoChai’s robe remind you that she comes from a rich family. “Bao Chai’scostumes signify a woman who’s rational, orderly, and pure,” says Yip.

SHeNG: Any great opera has a great story. Tosca and La Traviatahave come to China, where people have a totally different culture,and audiences were still touched by the music and the drama. Wewere making Dream of the red Chamber for an international audi-ence. Whether the audience is Chinese or Western, a touchingstory about ill-fated love should appeal to everyone.

lAi: i don’t see it in terms of China and the West. My jobis to tell the story in whatever way resonates most deeplywith the audience. The story already encapsulates thewhole Chinese mind and experience. even if you bring awhole avant-garde european flavor to it—which i’m defi-nitely not, by the way—the story will still come out Chinese. ifwe were doing it for a Chinese audience, there’s only one bigchange i would suggest, which is to perform it in Chinese. Asfar as staging is concerned, i think there’s sufficient visual lan-guage in common for what we do to resonate in Beijing as well.

Which was harder, translating this work on a linguistic-culturallevel or instilling an ancient story with contemporary relevance? lAi: i think both are equally challenging. For example, the operahas a wedding scene. in Chinese tradition, wedding ceremoniesare very different: the couple gives their offerings to the heavensand the parents, and then they’re married. But how do we makethis clear to an audience in San Francisco today?

SHeNG: David Hwang and i have worked well in this type ofadaptation right from our first collaboration, The Silver river.Because i spent the first half of my life in China, i completelyunderstand the way Chinese culture sees the story. David comesfrom an almost purely Western point of view. So we both have tobe happy with what we come up with before we move forward.And with Stan, whose background is mainly in modern drama, wework through yet another perspective.

HWANG: The love triangle is highly relatable to a contemporaryaudience, but it’s different from Western romantic conventionsbecause of the novel’s spiritual framework: the uber-story about thestone and the flower. on some otherworldly plane, the stone hascontinually watered the flower with morning dew for thousands ofyears. The flower wants to express her gratitude, so they ask apriest if she and the stone can be incarnated as humans andexpress earthly love. The priest warns against it, but they do it any-way. And this metaphysical element sets up an interesting thematicquestion: to what extent can true love exist in a corrupt, material

“You’ll find that quite a few of the robes are expansive, almost likemounted kites ready to fly off with the wind,” says Yip. “You’ll also seethat I chose a lot of sheer materials, so that light can pass through, againcreating a layering effect. Besides adding depth, back lighting can alsochange the hues depending on how the light is cast.” Again, color is key.The brown of Granny Jia, for instance, represents stability andunquestioned authority. “Granny Jia provides the structure on which thefamily is built,” says Yip.

Granny Jia

Princess Jia

Dancer

world? And that, too, is a very contemporary,universal concern.

SHeNG: one of the things that our versionmakes plain—and this point has beenalmost entirely neglected by Redologists—isthat Bao yu and Dai yu are the only twocharacters whose lives were pre-ordained.They don’t realize it right away. They don’teven live in the same house until Dai yu’smother passes away. But still they were des-tined to find each other as soulmates.

the novel is known for being a one-stopguide to Chinese traditions, with highlydetailed descriptions of daily life in the Qingdynasty. What were the most challengingdetails to put on stage today? HWANG: Fortunately, most of the physical details fall into Stan’s andTim’s departments. What’s challenging from a libretto standpoint isthat everything is stated in such an indirect fashion. For example, noone just comes out and says they love someone.  Conveying thisrefinement of speech, while also making the story clear to a contem-porary American audience, took some work. Bright would often giveme notes that a passage i’d written was too baldly stated! 

SHeNG: There’s a moment in the last scene in Act i where theprincess, now the emperor’s favorite concubine, comes homewith gifts from the emperor. She has fans for both Bao yu andBao Chai, and they’re obviously a pair. it’s a clear message. Mar-riage back then was not decided by love but by social status, andnow even the emperor supports this union. it’s a bombshell forDai yu, and the cliffhanger for the audience at the end of Act i. ididn’t just want to illustrate it in the score with a gong or some-thing, because that wouldn’t be elegant. But i did add a stagedirection: “Dai yu collapses to her knees.” The rest is Stan’s job.

lAi: This is the kind of thing that any Chinese person wouldunderstand immediately, but we had to make sure Western audi-ences realized that the emperor himself is playing matchmaker.Another example is in Act ii, when Dai yu burns her poetry whileBao yu is lamenting that they won’t be able to marry. Tim yip andi had set that scene somewhere in the garden, but we weren’t spe-cific. So i decided to move Bao yu to the same point where he’dspied on Dai yu earlier as she was catching blossoms and buryingthem. Now we have Bao yu recalling this scene in his aria at thesame time Dai yu is burning her poetry. This is one of the mostfamous scenes in the whole novel and an image that resonatesvery deeply in Chinese culture.

Ken Smith divides his time between New York and Hong Kong, wherehe is the Asian performing arts critic of the Financial Times. A winnerof the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for distinguished music writing, heis also the author of Fate, luck, Chance…The Making of TheBonesetter’s Daughter opera.

“Two things strike me about novelistCao Xueqin’s Dream of the RedChamber and have influenced myvisual designs,” says productiondesigner Tim Yip. “If we trace theactual history of the Cao family,which also experienced its ownheyday and demise, the family tradewas in silk brocade. Clearly, loomsare very important to these people,and you’ll notice that my set designhas strings suspending differentpanels that rise and fall during theopera. These strings are like threadsthat interweave, adding texture anddepth. When back lighting is added,they create the idea of weaving‘dreams’ and ‘illusions.’”