When Butterfly Meets VR:Does Opera's Future Lie in Reinvention or Preservation?
By Elizabeth Jia As the curtain rises on Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Madama Butterfly," the audience is met not with a traditional Japanese house but with a sleek, modern apartment. Pinkerton lounges in a T-shirt and casual pants, a VR headset resting on his head—just as Puccini's immortal melody begins to play. It's a provocative opening, and it poses an unavoidable question: Should classic opera move with the times, or remain faithful to tradition? Purists may bristle at such
From ‘Killing Beauty’ (Shā Lè Měi) to ‘Killing Me’: On the North American Premiere of McVicar’s Salome
By Elizabeth Jia Before attending the dress rehearsal of Salome at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, I had braced myself. Having been forewarned that the opera isn’t exactly “easy on the ears,” I had playfully pre-translated its title using a Chinese pun. The standard Chinese transliteration of Salome is “莎乐美” (Shā Lè Měi). By shifting the tones and characters slightly, it becomes “杀了美” (Shāle Měi), which literally means “Killing Beauty”—a fitting jab at my anticipated aural assaul
The Mirror of History and the Dream of the Future: The Modernist Reinvention and Cultural Politics of the Chicago World's Fair Edition of The Nutcracker by Joffrey Ballet
By Elizabeth Jia Introduction: When Fairy Tale Meets Modern History The melody of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker is solidified in Western cultural memory as the soundtrack of the Christmas season, much like drinking eggnog and eating Gingerbread men – a must-see ballet every holiday season, a production that sustains many ballet companies. However, Christopher Wheeldon's Chicago World's Fair edition of The Nutcracker for The Joffrey Ballet does not present the traditional dream
Deconstruction and Reconstruction: Desire, Trauma, and the Remaking of Family Myth in The Capulets
By Elizabeth Jia The Capulets, choreographed and directed by Wade Schaaf, Artistic Director of the Chicago Repertory Ballet (CRB), stands as one of the most audacious deconstructions and reconstructions of Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet. Recognized as one of the top ten dance productions of the year in Chicago, this work shifts the focus away from the central tragic romance, instead turning a brutally precise spotlight onto the internal dynamics of the Capulet family.
An Americanized 'Journey to the West' Emerges in San Francisco: Reflections on the Opera 'The Monkey King'
by Elizabeth Jia Having attended the global premiere at the San Francisco Opera and reflected for less than twenty-four hours, those initially startling adaptations have begun to ferment in my mind, forming a peculiar aftertaste. This opera, with an almost reckless courage, has recast one of China's Four Great Classical Novels, Journey to the West, in the crucible of contemporary American culture. At first glance, it felt jarring; upon further thought, this seems to be the ex
An interview with Chinese Artist Mr. Yuanwei Yang
Mr. Yuanwei Yang was born in 1943 in Jiangsu Province, China. He is an artist at the American Arts Research Institute and a member of the...
