The Monkey King Phenomenon at SF Opera

The final work of the San Francisco Opera fall season was a world premiere that turned into a sold-out sensation. Composed by Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo with a libretto by David Henry Hwang, The Monkey King was a startling success in a sumptuously creative production. Considering that there are no romances or deaths or any of the melodramatic situations that propel most opera plots, it was a surprising triumph.

Before each performance, there was an unusually rich and insightful lecture by Sidney Chen. He started by explaining the genesis of the story, taken from an episodic 1592 Chinese novel Journey to the West, and how the character of the Monkey King has been used over the centuries in Peking operas, plays, animated television series, modern videogames, and now a Western style opera. "This opera, by the way, only covers the first seven chapters of Journey to the West, which is 100 chapters long."

After a contemplative opening chorus singing the Buddhist Diamond Sutra in Mandarin, the language turns to English when the Monkey King is born out of a rock in the first of a host of amazing theatrical effects. The title character is played interchangeably by a puppet, the dancer Huiwang Zhang, and the tenor Kang Wang who was extraordinary throughout. I hope the company brings him back to sing any role he desires because his voice and physicality felt boundless. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

The real major character of the opera was the chorus, who played a monkey tribe given safe haven by its new king, along with decadent courtiers in Heaven...

...and Buddhist disciples of Master Subhuti, sung beautifully by bass-baritone Jusung Gabriel Park.

After being kicked out of the religious group by his Buddhist master, who has given him the name Sun Wukong, the Monkey King goes under the sea to steal a powerful weapon from the Dragon King Ao Guang, sung authoritatively by baritone Joo Woo Kang,

The stars of the opera, however, were the production team in one of the most spectacular physical shows ever seen at the opera house. Directed by Diane Paulus, this swiftly moving production is an elaborate, monumental work created by set designer and master of puppetry Basil Twist. I had seen a couple of his small shows at the HERE Center in Manhattan over the years, but even the impressive work he did on the San Francisco Ballet's production of Prokofiev's Cinderella didn't quite prepare me for the sheer grandeur of this creation. He was aided by Sara C. Walsh as an associate set designer, Anita Yavich as costume designer, Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa as lighting designer, and Hana S. Kim as the projection designer.

They all created genuine magic, flying us from mountaintops to the bottom of the ocean to a familiarly corrupt heaven where the Monkey King is insulted once again by human royalty treating him contemptuously. The character is a trickster, however, and in one of the most exquisite moments of stagecraft, he sets the Heavenly Horses free to roam the skies, an effect created by a small army of puppeteers.

The music by composer Huang Ruo is a complex grab-bag of styles, from minimalism to hints of other 20th century composers and even Broadway style propulsion. My only criticism is that many of the vocal lines were difficult and unwieldy for most of the singers, who all still managed to give impressive performances. It was a blessed relief when the Monkey King was finally given a lyrical aria near the finale in The Land of Bliss, and we could hear the sheer beauty of Kang Wang's voice.

The libretto by David Henry Hwang is well structured with its flashback device of the Monkey King, imprisoned under a mountain for 500 years, looking back at his life and adventures so far. These included defeating the avenging legions of Heaven, with chorister Jonathan Smucker as King of the East amusingly performing an air guitar/pipa duel with the Monkey King.

My only problem with the libretto is how flat and unpoetic much of the English is in a medium that almost demands real poetry. My friend James Parr, who is bilingual in Mandarin and English, noted that the Chinese surtitles were much more beautifully poetic than the English surtitles in both Hwang's The Monkey King and his earlier libretto for 2016's Dream of the Red Chamber.

Throughout this hectic, episodic tale, there are calm intervals where Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion guides The Monkey King on the road away from ego and arrogance to compassionate enlightenment. Sung gorgeously by soprano Mei Gui Zhang while floating all over the stage, she is finally joined by Buddha who grants The Monkey King freedom from his 500-year-old mountain tomb so he can begin his Journey to the West. Congratulations to everyone involved in this ambitious success.

Manet and Morisot at the Legion

The Legion of Honor Museum occasionally presents concept shows that feel more gimmicky than illuminating, such as the recent Wayne Thiebaud exhibit and his old master influences. Their current exhibit, however, detailing the relationship between the 19th century French painters Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is fascinating and full of visual surprises.

Both painters were upper-class Parisians who died relatively young, but not before changing Western art history, with Manet's striking modernism in subject and style and Morisot's role in the founding of Impressionism. (Pictured is Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, 1872).

Morisot was a friend, artistic collaborator, and frequent model for Manet, and eventually married his brother, Eugène Manet. (Pictured is the 1874 Berthe Morisot with a Fan.)

One of Manet's most famous paintings is the 1868 The Balcony, where Berthe is seated.

Morisot soon painted her own version of what it was like from the inside, with her sister Edma posing in a chair. (Pictured is the 1870 Young Woman at Her Window. )

The exhibit features quite a number of exquisite Morisot paintings and at first it is fairly easy to spot which artist painted which canvas, but after a while that task becomes more difficult because they both influenced each other's styles so profoundly. (Pictured is Morisot's 1869 The Harbor at Lorient.)

One wall near the end of the show features four paintings by the two painters, similar in subject and style, and the "is it a Manet or Morisot?" guessing game is amusing. I guessed wrong, and realized a major clue afterwards, that Manet loved dark black accents while Morisot avoided them almost completely. Recommended if you have a Fine Arts Museum membership, a bit pricey if not.

The 2025 Adler Concert

The annual Adler Fellows concert, showcasing the young musical artists training program at the San Francisco Opera, is always a bittersweet affair. For some, it's the beginning of a great operatic career while for others it may be the end of the road after spending two or three years in the program. Backed by the onstage San Francisco Opera Orchestra led by conductor Ramón Tebar, nine singers tackled a variety of arias and scenes in the small Herbst Theater. Though I have admired all of them in the small roles they have performed during the last couple of seasons onstage at the SF Opera, some of them seemed overmatched by the challenging repertoire selected for this The Future Is Now concert. But let's focus on the positive, starting with newcomer baritone Olivier Zerouali singing a rapid-fire Largo al factotum from The Barber of Seville by Rossini. (All photos are by Kristen Loken.)

Bass-baritone Jongwon Han has been a stalwart in quite a few roles on the main stage over the last three years, and his smooth, resounding voice worked well in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Bellini's La Sonnambula.

Another major highlight was most of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème with soprano Olivia Smith as Mimi, tenor Samuel White as Rodolfo, Samuel Kidd as Marcello, and Georgiana Adams as Musetta. They all sounded ready to take on their respective roles on any stage in the world.

My favorite moment of the evening was baritone Samuel Kidd singing the title role in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, which managed to make me all teary-eyed. If any opera house in the world is looking to cast a handsome young baritone with a gorgeous voice and innate musical brilliance in a production of this opera, they should look no further.

The Art of Manga at the deYoung

Unlike many friends, I have never been particularly drawn to comic books, graphic novels, or animation, so The Art of Manga at the deYoung Museum did not hold much appeal, but the exhibit turned out to be fascinating.

One reason for that is the design of the installation, which is beautiful and varied. Kudos to whomever is responsible at the museum, which organized the show.

Since Japanese is read from right to left, the installation was set up that way too.

However, it was amusing watching many museumgoers moving and reading left to right out of habit.

Each room is focused on one of ten contemporary Japanese manga artists, and the explanatory signage is clear and well-written, with a brief synopsis of the narratives of their major works along with graphic examples. Above is a still from PLINIUS by Yamazaki Mari and Tori Miki about ancient Rome, including Pliny the Elder experiencing the eruption of Vesuvius.

Another nod to Western culture is the forthcoming The Monstrous Ocean: The Curious Travels of Ahab by Ito Junji which retells the story of Moby Dick, except with more monsters.

The represented artists were well balanced by gender...

...and there was even a gay man, Tagame Gengoroh, whose My Brother's Husband has become a beloved sensation in Japan.

It involves a Western gay bear meeting up with his deceased spouse's identical twin brother.

Of course, the artistic tradition of comic books almost demands superheroes, and there were plenty of them in the exhibit too...

...along with what my spouse called out as, "Look, Nancy's on acid!"