BERKELEY -- Weakened by the flu, Peter Sellars went on stage anyway
tonight, to introduce the American premiere of his production of the
1598 Chinese kun opera "Peony Pavilion."

He spoke of Tang Xianzu, the Ming Dynasty author, being as a contemporary
of Shakespeare and Monteverdi, and how -- unlike "TV which is much too
little," this is a work that is "much too much."

Truer words have never been spoken.  With great stars of Chinese opera,
actors, singers trained in the West, a ballet dancer, banks of monitors
showing both film and live camcorder images, a Chinese orchestra and
something resembling a rock band; the composer Tan Dun's synthesis of
Gregorian chants, Boito, electronic music/sounds/noise, Orff, and Indian
raga; a story that ranges from the "dream of apricot" to sex with the dead,
the living, and the in-between...  well, altogether, it really IS much too
much.

And not nearly enough.

With a 10-year residence in the vicinity of Hawaii's East-West Center, I
know Chinese opera, Chinese opera is a friend of mine, and Messrs.  Sellars
and Tan Dun:  this ain't no Chinese opera.  This "reconstruction" and
"recreation" is a hodge-podge, a mess, a misuse of some truly outstanding
talent.

The problem is not that the story of one convoluted love affair over the
span of three lifetimes is told in a confusing, sloppy, overblown manner;
the real, terrible trouble is that halfway through the three hours, you no
longer CARE.

(Sellars must be given credit for one thing.  Before the performance,
I asked John Rockwell why, when he was director of the Lincoln Center
Festival, he didn't get "Peony Pavilion" to New York.  He said he had
scheduled it for 1997, but Sellars pulled out.  Why? "He didn't want to
do the short version and the full, 18-hour original concurrently." If THIS
production went just an hour over the very long three hours, most of the
audience would have followed the relatively few who voted with their feet
tonight.)

Act 1 of the Sellars production is an excerpt of traditional kunqu music
from the original 55-scene work, with English dialogue (Lauren Tom and Joel
de la Fuente) in-between the magnificent appearances of Hua Wenyi and the
comic genius Shi Jiehua.  Dancer Michael Schumacher is already complicating
things, but both musically and dramatically, the first act, by and large,
works.  In fact, a five-minute silent pas de deux with Hua Wenyi and
Schumacher may well be the best of the evening.

Sure, the MTV show is distracting, and Tan Dun's reorchestration of the
music in the fashion of Ives and the late Schoenberg is not all that
attractive, but what the heck.

The trouble is with the 90-minute second act, composed by Tan Dun in 1998.
It added to the already considerable forces one Lin Quiang Xu, who had a
strong start, but soon proved to be the Chinese version of Wolfgang Schmidt
(although could have sung a better Tristan).

Perhaps the worst aspect of tonight was that this production serves as the
local debut for Ying Huang, a wonderful soprano (known widely through the
current film version of "Madama Butterfly"), wasted in the circus music and
directorial mess.  (Just one unnecessary, attention-diverting shtick among
dozens:  Takayo Fischer, the heroine's mother, maybe, stays on stage right
throughout the hour and a half of the second act, wringing her hands; an
illuminating contribution.)

Sensory overload is all in the mind, of course, and it's possible to deal
with it, but only if it serves a larger purpose or, at least, coexist with
something for the brain, the heart.  That stuff, alas, does not grow in
"Peony Pavilion."

Janos Gereben/SF
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