Marco Polo
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"a strikingly willful personal style, full of naiveté, artistic expertise, unrestrained imagination and a captivating innate musicality"
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 62912 - Available on CD |
Described by its creators (composer Tan Dun and librettist Paul Griffiths, now music critic for the New York Times) as "an opera within an opera," Marco Polo examines the spiritual and musical journey represented in the story of the Italian explorer Marco Polo, who first visited China during the Renaissance.
Tan Dun, whose Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind (SK 63368) dealt with the cultural resonances of the transfer of Hong Kong to China, is a composer ideally suited to capturing the implications of this historical confrontation -- Marco Polo and China, East and West -- which still reverberate today.
Reviewing the opera's 1996 premiere in Munich, one German critic wrote, "Marco Polo is a journey in sound from Gregorian chant to Peking opera, from Strauss to Himalayan overtone singing... with incredible suppleness Tan moves from Shaman singing to a Puccini aria, from Tibetan temple horns to the prepared piano of John Cage, from Mahler to the rice paddies of Hunan." Germany's Opera magazine named Marco Polo the "Opera of the Year".
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