Blurring the Boundaries: Tan Dun's Tinte and The First Emperor

Abstract

Tan Dun's 2006 opera The First Emperor dramatically transgresses stylistic, cultural, genre, and aesthetic boundaries and prompts investigation of critical methods and categories. This opera's multiplicity and engagement with the operatic past brings into focus relationships between Chinese, European, and experimental American operatic traditions and Romantic, modernist, and postmodernist modes of Orientalist representation. Powers's study of Puccini's manipulation of multiple styles in Turandot is a model for tracing Tan's stylistic sources and exploring their interaction in The First Emperor. Tan's use of conventions from the Orientalist operatic tradition and treatment of thematic material indicates an attempt to accommodate audience expectations. Other recent operas influenced by Chinese operatic traditions and the recent reception of Chinese opera in the West likely shaped Tan's composition and offer useful contextual and comparative perspectives. The critical reception and revision of this high-profile opera raise issues central to the creation of contemporary opera.

Review of Yayoi Uno Everett,Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera

“…Her analytic observations skillfully convey relationships between themes and demonstrate how the opera reflects Tan Dun's aesthetic of "1+1=1," in which two different cultural units can be combined into a seamless and unique whole (166). Evere also addresses how her work compares to the analysis of The First Emperor by Anthony Sheppard (2009). Both analyses take Puccini's Turandot as a point of comparison, though Evere claims that hers highlights compositional differences while Shepphard's emphasizes similarities.…”