The UMKC Conservatory is pleased to announce that Bonfils Distinguished Research Professor of Composition Zhou Long's powerful opera Madame White Snake will be staged March 8–9, 2019 at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Zhou Long won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Madame White Snake, with libretto from Cerise Lim Jacobs. Zhou Long was the first Chinese Pulitzer Prize winner for music. Madame White Snake premiered February 26, 2010 by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.
Well-known for a unique musical language that blends both Chinese and Western elements, in this masterpiece Zhou blends a Western orchestra with traditional Chinese musical instruments such as the two-stringed erhu fiddle, bamboo flute and xun ocarina. Beijing opera inflections are seamlessly incorporated into the singers’ vocal lines alongside soaring lyrical passages and even Schoenbergian Sprechstimme. The music is accompanied by colourful projections depicting landscapes, seasons, and fantastic figures such as an immense slithering white snake, intensifying the drama and stimulating the senses in this ravishing, romantic tale that transcends both language and culture.
Congratulations!