The National Theater Taichung (NTT) opened its “The Fall for Great Souls” series last night with the first of three performances of Barcelona-based La Fura dels Baus’ terrific, sci-fi centric production of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried, backed by the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO, 國家交響樂團) under conductor Lu Shao-chia (呂紹嘉).
Siegfried is the first of 10 programs that include Austrian-based Taiwanese choreographer Lin Mei-hong’s (林美虹) The Little Mermaid for the Landestheater Linz Ballet, where she is artistic director, on Nov. 3 and Nov. 4, Etat de siege by the Theatre de la Ville, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s (雲門舞集) 45th anniversary show and Hsu Yafen Taiwanese Opera Troupe’s (許亞芬歌子戲劇坊) production of The Soul Switch and Justice Bao (謎魂奇案).
Siegfried, the third of the four operas that constitute Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung is a brave choice to start the series, given that the three-act production lasts for five hours, with two intermissions.
Photo courtesy of Tato Baeza
The 39-year-old La Fura dels Baus and Carlus Padrissa, one of the troupe’s six directors, are renowned for their futuristic 3D stage designs and blurring the boundaries between actors and audience, and this production of Siegfried is no exception.
Padrissa’s multimedia vision of the opera, which premiered in 2008 in the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Spain, with Zubin Mehta conducting, features video projections in three dimensions, an 11m dragon, acrobats, glass floors that reflect the duality of the character.
The sets were designed by Roland Olbeter, the costumes by Chu Uroz and the lighting by Peter Van Praet.
Photo courtesy of Tato Baeza
Padrissa sees Siegfried, a man who does not know who he is or who is parents were, as a man in a permanent state of combustion in his pursuit of the idea of justice for all.
A super-condensed summary of the opera goes like this: a dwarf, Mime, raises a boy, Siegfried, as his own, hoping that he will be able to one day slay the dragon Fafner, which stole a huge treasure from Mime’s brother, Alberich, including a ring that gives is wearer power over the entire planet.
After Siegfried grows up, with the help of a mysterious wanderer (actually the god Wotan), he is finally able to reforge his father’s sword, which he uses to kill the dragon. He also eventually kills Mime, claims the ring of power and rescues a beautiful woman, Brunnhilde, who is meant to be his wife.
Photo courtesy of Tato Baeza
It is a story of treachery, the pursuit of justice and the desire for love: lots of drama, lots of high notes.
The cast includes Vincent Wolfsteiner as Siegfried, Rodell Rosel as Mime, Jukka Rasilainen as The Wanderer and Susan Bullock as Brunnhilde.
The opera will be sung in German, with English and Chinese surtitles.
If the high prices of the tickets are not enough to scare away Wagner or La Fura dels Baus fans, the idea of a marathon performance that starts before most people have had their dinners (5pm) might be, so the NTT is offering a meal service during the intermissions, with advance reservations via its Web site or the NTCH ticketing system.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced last week a city policy to get businesses to reduce working hours to seven hours per day for employees with children 12 and under at home. The city promised to subsidize 80 percent of the employees’ wage loss. Taipei can do this, since the Celestial Dragon Kingdom (天龍國), as it is sardonically known to the denizens of Taiwan’s less fortunate regions, has an outsize grip on the government budget. Like most subsidies, this will likely have little effect on Taiwan’s catastrophic birth rates, though it may be a relief to the shrinking number of
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
RSS