EUGENE - "There will be only percussion in the orchestra for the first
act," Tan Dun said, "all women, wearing no clothes." The second act
orchestration is for various paper instruments, the third for ceramics
only.  The women's chorus will be in a tea bath.  I didn't bother to ask
what they'll wear.

Between last night's US premiere of "Water Passion" at the Oregon Bach
Festival and tomorrow's concert of three orchestral works, Tan paused long
enough this afternoon for an interview about the opera he just finished.

"Tea" will premiere in Tokyo's Santori Hall in October, continue to the
co-producing Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam next January, to Shanghai,
and then - if Tan's track record remains intact - all over the place.

The work, four years in the making, uses Tan's own libretto, about the
"invention or discovery of tea." It will be, he said with a twinkle in his
eye, "sensual, erotic, spiritual." The protagonist is a Japanese prince,
travelling to China in the 8th century to find the Book of Tea.  He will
be involved in a love story, but - as far as I understood - not with the
percussionists.  Who will direct - Robert Wilson? No, said Tan, "the next
generation."

Among the many other works the much-commissioned Tan is involved with:
an opera for Placido Domingo and the Met, to premiere in 2005, and to be
presented also at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  Won't Domingo be too old
by then to sing the title role? He'll be only as old then, Tan replied,
as Pavarotti is now.  I dropped the topic.

Tan hasn't decided on the subject yet, but there are two strong
possibilities:  the story of Jewish refugees in Shanghai in the '40s or
an opera about dreams and reality, featuring Freud and Lao Tzu.  Fully
dressed, most likely.

Janos Gereben/SF
In Oregon, to July 8
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