Monkey, a nine-act opera performed in Chinese, covers the birth of the Monkey King, his adventures and ascension to Buddha-hood. It was co-commissioned by Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet (TdC), the Manchester International Festival (MIF) and Berlin’s State Opera House (Staatsoper Unter Den Linden).
The opera premiered on 28 June 2007 at the Palace Theatre, as the opening show of the inaugural MIF. It was next staged at the TdC from September to October 2007, before having its U.S. premiere at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, from May to June 2008. The tour to Berlin, originally scheduled in July 2008, was cancelled due to technical reasons. Instead, it was staged at London’s Royal Opera House.
There are currently no plans for future performances. However, an album based on the opera and recorded in London and Beijing will be released on 18 August and 23 September 2008 in the U.K. and U.S. respectively.
The Story
The U.K. audience is familiar with the Chinese legend Journey to the West, originally written by Wu Chengen in the 1590s. Those who are older remember the cult TV hit Monkey Magic from the 1970s, a Japanese series dubbed in English. The younger ones know the story through the Japanese anime Dragon Ball. BBC Sports also recently used this legend in its marketing campaign for its 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage.
The first half of the opera focused on the birth of Monkey and his adventures. The next half happened five hundred years later, when Tripitaka embarked on his pilgrimage to obtain Buddhist scriptures from India, aided by Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy and White Horse. They had to fight off various demons like the White-Bone Spirit and the Spider Spirit who were after Tripitaka’s flesh to gain immortality. The pilgrims eventually succeeded in their mission and ascended to Paradise.
The Creative Team
Monkey marked the first major collaboration between Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett since their last project – the virtual superband Gorillaz.
In composing the music score, Albarn combined elements of east and west, pop and classical. Traditional Chinese and classical Western instruments, as well as esoteric instruments (ondes Martenot, glass harmonica and cristal Baschet), were used to enrich the electronic soundscape. He even conceived the klaxophone, made of old-fashioned car horns, plywood and video game spare parts, to replicate the sounds of cars on a busy Chinese street.
Hewlett was responsible for the visual concept, design, costumes and the animation linking the various acts. He helped to create the effect of an animated film being presented live.
Chen Shizheng, the New York-based director who was fascinated with the legend from young, wrote the opera and the lyrics based on ancient Chinese texts.
The Troupe
Supporting the five lead characters were sixty performers from the Dalian Troupe, founded in 1951. Various acrobatic skills and circus acts were cleverly integrated into the opera. Twirling umbrellas represented bubbles of the Eastern Sea, aerial silk dancing was used to simulate webs of the Spider Spirit, Heavenly Soldiers rode on unicycles while other Gods wore rollerblades, and plates were twirled on poles in the finale.
There were also exhibition of other traditional Chinese art forms, including martial arts, contortion, trapeze and ‘bell pulling’.
Accolades
The Times of London called the opera “a piece of musical theater of the most spectacular kind."
Monkey won Best International Production at the 2007 Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, and was nominated for Best Opera at the 2008 South Bank Awards.
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