Tan Dun likens his play to wine, and a good play, like any good wine, it’s not to be stored but is instead to be shared around. The Hunan-born music master has recently produced a large-scale musical drama, New Woodcutter Liu Hai, using his hometown landscape as backdrops.
Featuring a series of intangible cultural heritages from Hunan province, the show illustrates these heritages in a creative way, giving both domestic and international audiences a taste of these protected heritages.
This is the first musical to tell a complete story using high mountains and sheer peaks as backdrops. New Woodcutter Liu Hai has attracted attention from many people at the China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair.
Since its debut in September 2009 at Tianmenshan Mountain in Zhangjiajie city, Northwest of Hunan province, the musical has attracted within four months, 150,000 tourists from the Chinese mainland, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, Hong Kong as well as Macau. “This is a milestone for performances featuring real landscapes,” director Mei Shuaiyuan comments.
Tan Dun, the music director of this musical, was noted by the New York Times as one of the ten important musicians on the international stage. In 2001, he won an Oscar for Best Original Score for his soundtrack for Ang Lee's breathtaking movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
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