Arts Focus: Setting "Semele"

This is hardly new news, but the Chinese artist Zhang Huan has designed and directed a production of George Frideric Handel's (1685-1759) opera "Semele" in a project co-organized by Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and the KT Wong Foundation in London that commemorates the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. Zhang worked with an international team of choreographers, designers, and performers in order to realize the production that opened on September 8. It will then travel to China in 2010.

In the following interview, Zhang discusses the experience of working on the opera in addition to providing a behind-the-scenes view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuGSHjVyXM8

An article about the opera can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/17iht-LOOMIS.html?_r=1&ref=arts

Zhang's set designs for the opera touch upon universal themes of the encounters between gods and humans by using a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ancestral temple built of wood for the primary backdrop, which can be seen prominently in an image from the following article:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=32034

Moreover, his work on this project ties together his early excursions into performance art when he lived in the "East Village" of Beijing during the mid-1990s, and introduces yet another layer of interpretation, from ancient Greek myth to Baroque opera to the 21st century international stage.