Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Dallas Observer Free
We’re aiming to raise $10,000 by April 26. Your support ensures Dallas Observer can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
Farewell My Concubine is a familiar love story in China. It’s been a poem, a novel and an Oscar-nominated 1993 film. Now it’s also a 90-minute Western-style opera (sung in Mandarin with English subtitles), and it’s coming from China to Richardson’s Eisemann Center with its original 130-member cast and orchestra February 5 and 6.
Shanghai-born Dallas millionaire Emily Kuo Vong saw the production by the China National Opera House last year and decided to produce and finance a six-city American tour. Vong, founder and chairman of a Dallas-based non-profit group promoting cultural exchanges between China and the U.S., is a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Xiao Bai, the composer of Farewell My Concubine.
Vong and Run Yu Qun, the 25-year-old beauty who sings a starring role in the opera, previewed the show for the Dallas press this week. Good thing we brought our video camera — after the jump, course. –Elaine Liner
