Tan Dun’s Opera “Tea” will be staged

Tea-- The Heart's Mirror is an opera by the world-famous Chinese composer Tan Dun, the opera is a love story between a princess of the Tang Dynasty and a Japanese monk based on the Chinese tea culture and the Book of Tea written by Lu Yu. But the story goes beyond love, exploring themes such as death, nature, and spirituality. The opera includes music full of the profoundness and ease of Chinese style and utilizes diversified natural sounds as well as percussion instruments like shuiqin (water-phone), yunluo (cloud gongs), porcelains, pottery drums and even paper and water, which are in perfect harmony with the Book of Tea and the Zen represented in the opera in terms of form and content.

Tea-- The Heart's Mirror has many versions from different countries, including Japan, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Sweden, since its debut in Tokyo in 1992. Many famous opera actors of the world and top opera actors of China, including Liao Changyong, Fu Haijing, Li Xiuying and Mo Hualun, have played the leading roles in different versions. However, there has never been a Chinese version of the opera so far although it is a collection of Chinese culture and national legacies, which is a blank in its history since its birth 15 years ago. In 2008, at the juncture of the Olympic Games, when the whole world focus on Beijing, creators of Tea-- The Hearts Mirror will pull out all stops to present a classic work integrating the excellent tradition of Chinese culture and modern originality so as to reproduce the traditional elements in a modern way and carry forward the Chinese spirit with international styles.

"Tea" will be staged in the opera house of China's National Center for the Performing Arts on July 30 and 31.