Tan is 'upside down Marco Polo'

NEW YORK — He collected folk songs in villages in his native China, then planted rice during the Cultural Revolution. Later, he played music on the streets of New York to buy food.

Now, composer Tan Dun has made his Metropolitan Opera debut.

"The First Emperor," starring Placido Domingo in the title role of a production with a reported cost of up to $3 million, has its world premiere — on stage and in cyberspace.

No stranger to success, Tan won an Oscar in 2001 for the music for the martial arts fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." His other compositions include "The Map," a cello concerto written for Yo-Yo Ma; and the score for the 2002 movie "Hero," with violin solos by Itzhak Perlman.

Still, "The First Emperor" — the story of betrayal involving a conqueror, his daughter and a court composer two millennia ago — should be a great leap forward for the 49-year-old Tan, who will conduct all nine performances through Jan. 25.

AP: Did you ever think while growing up in Hunan province that you would be here?

Tan: No. It's a huge distance. I just cannot imagine. Thirty years ago, you know, I was planting the rice. ... It's a dream. To me, this distance is not just 30 years. It just seems like a few hundred years. ... It's not just distance. ... I came from a completely different tradition and now I end up with another tradition. From this tradition I take it back, to let the two traditions meet — to embrace.

AP: So you feel like Marco Polo?

Tan: Upside-down Marco Polo.

AP: How did you get involved in music?

Tan: I was growing up in my grandma's village. My grandma was a vegetable farmer. So basically all the farmers and people always are gathering together in the evening for ritual opera, for chanting for funeral(s) or wedding(s). My childhood life I remember every night is musical activities — lessons that go to stories, through chantings.

AP: How did you get to New York?