Theatre Dragon

A full house at Southbank's Royal Festival Hall to celebrate the Chinese New Year with the magnificent UK Premiere of Tan Dun's 'Buddha Passion'.

Tan Dun was inspired by  the ancient  Dunhuang desert cave murals - thousands of images  of musical instruments and musicians seemed to call out to the composer for transcription. The resulting sound  combined Buddhist mantra, Western scoring for the mighty string and wind section (six double basses, contra bassoon, tuba and bass trombones) and  percussion bringing together Western timpani with Chinese drums and bells.

Two choirs - the London Phlharmonic and London Chinese Philharmonic were brought together unde the baton of Tan Dun - singing in Sanskrit and Mandarin surtitled  in English. 

The libretto drew on texts  from 6th and 7th century Buddhist masters.

At the heart of the Buddha Passion were Chinese soloists - some classically trained like the thrilling bass baritone Shenyang (the Met and Glyndebourne), the mezzo Huiling Zhu  and superb tenor  Kang Wang, but the voices also drew on other musical traditions: the most extraordinary voice that filled the Festival Hall to form an accoustic bridge between the Silk Road steppes of the past and 21st century London - was a shamanistic feat by performer  Batubagen described as "an indigenous singer" originally   from Inner Mongolia, master of "khoomei" (throat singing and the "Morin khuur" (horsehair fiddle).