Huayi Festival 2015：Savage Land – An Opera in Concert

Director & Set Design：Goh Boon Teck
Libretto：Adapted by Wan Fang from Cao Yu’s play of the same title
Composer：Jin Xiang
Adapter：Phoon Yew Tien

Adapted from renowned Chinese playwright Cao Yu’s classic play The Wilderness, Savage Land – An Opera in Concert takes you on a heartwrenching journey through music and song.

Savage Land was the first Chinese-language Western-style opera that was performed in the West. With music readapted by SCO resident composer Phoon Yew Tien from the original composition by Jin Xiang and libretto by Cao Yu’s daughter Wan Fang, this operatic concert experience transports you to a countryside in Northeastern China during the early 20th century. With bold strokes, it paints a realistic picture of the social injustice, inequality and conflicts experienced then.

Under the baton of Music Director Tsung Yeh and directed by Goh Boon Teck, opera singers Zhang Feng (as Chou Hu), Li Jing Jing (as Jin Zi), Zhang Ya Lin (as Jiao Da Xing), Zhu Hui Ling (as Jiao’s mother), William Lim (as Chang Wu), and Melvin Tan (as Bai Shazi) take the stage with Singapore Chinese Orchestra and a 60-member National University of Singapore Choir led by Nelson Kwei.

Co-produced by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and Singapore Chinese Orchestra.

About Savage Land
Chou Hu breaks out of prison and returns to his hometown to avenge his father and sister who were both brutally murdered. Upon reaching home, he is shocked to find that his arch-enemy, the evil landlord Jiao Yan, is now dead, and that his fiancée Jin Zi has become the wife of the landlord’s son Jiao Da Xing.

Filled with hatred, Chou Hu sneaks into Jiao Da Xing’s home and eventually kills him. Jiao Da Xing’s blind mother attempts to kill Chou Hu, but instead mistakenly murders her own grandson. Chou Hu and his fiancée escape into the endless wilderness and soon get lost in the darkness of the savage land. As dawn breaks, they discover that they are surrounded by the brigade, with no way out…

Ticket Prices: $78, $58, $38
(Prices before SISTIC fee)