Deseret News | Tan is 'upside down Marco Polo'

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Tan is 'upside down Marco Polo'

Composer who picked rice in China makes Met debut

By Martin Steinberg
Associated Press

Published: Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006 12:11 a.m. MST

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Tan: No. I'm interested in putting an artist and a politician together — to have a contrast of their mind. ... Qin Shi Huang (was) pretty much like Mao Zedong. ... He was great. He unified China. He made the language, made the measuring system, made the currency. ... But on the other hand, imagine how many other kingdoms' tribes he wiped out, how many other languages he destroyed, and the culture and books burned by him.

AP: During the decade the opera has been in the works, you have done much research on the music of Qin's time. With your percussive music, were you trying to re-create what he may have heard?

Tan: It's kind of a dream processing.

AP: What about your dream with Placido Domingo? You have said you had long dreamed of writing an opera for him. And this is his first world premiere at the Met in his 38 years with the company.

Tan: When I was a student at Columbia I ... (saw) every single opera of his and always said: ... "If in my lifetime someday I could work with him, write for him, then it's nice. It's the word from God, it's wonderful." Of course I always say ... it's too high to dream it.

AP: So here it is?

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Tan: It's wonderful feeling when you see the dream become real. Especially to (a) composer, every piece is a dream. You always start from zero. You imagine what kind of sound, timing, space. You imagine the sounds of opera. But this dream is more specific. I had a lot of dreams. I had (a) dream once when I was little, if I could work with Yo-Yo Ma! And it became true. And once I thought, if I could have a chance to write something for Itzhak Perlman, and I did! So now it's Domingo. I felt on the one hand I learned so much from them. ... On the other hand I felt like a makeup artist, like a tailor, to make them more beautiful in my way. It seems like they enjoy it. They feel they are more beautiful in a certain way, in my way.

The Jan. 13 matinee will be transmitted live in high definition into movie theaters around the world and broadcast on the Met's terrestrial radio network (metopera.org).