Overview

DATE & TIME: 21-23 AUG 12:00PM

DURATION: 60 Mins

LOCATION: Assembly George Square - Gordon Aikman Theatre (George Square, EH8 9LH)

TICKET PRICE: £13 - £14

TICKET PURCHASE: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tang-and-four-dreams

Tang and Four Dreams applies a “play within a play” storyline, delivering a contemporary interpretation of Tang Xianzu，who’s widely known as “Shakespeare of the East”. In the Ming Dynasty part, several important episodes in Tang’s life are selected to accompany his composition of the renowned Four Dreams in Linchuan. In the modern part, a young woman named Xin’an, with the help of Daydream, tries to search for the meaning of the key sentence “Where does love arise? It wells up from the deep” written by Tang Xianzu in his masterpiece The Peony Pavilion. In this play, Du Li-niang (the heroine created by Tang) embodies his unswerving commitment to ideals and love, and was presented in the traditional artistic form of the Kunqu Opera. 

This great love story constructed by composer Xu Jianqiang and lyricist Lin Zaiyong effectively showcase numerous facets of Chinese culture and the 16th-century Chinese literature for contemporary audience. You will find a strong Chinese national flavor in the play, combining traditional Chinese musical instruments with strings and pianoforte of the west; coupled with live multi-medias, it well integrates both the modern and the traditional.

Subsidized by China National Arts Fund, a variety of TANG versions has been staged worldwide, including performances at the opening ceremony of Opera Exam Festival in Hungary, the international music exhibition MIDEM in France and the Shanghai-Taipei Interurban Forum. In early April 2019, it toured at the world’s top musical venues, such as the Sydney Opera House and the Melbourne Recital Centre, and it has received a four-star review at the LIMELIGHT, an Australian classical music & arts magazine and ON THE HOUSE, an Australian performing arts website, etc. 

This chamber musical TANG AND FOUR DREAMS presented by talented performers and musicians from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music will premiere in Edinburgh, offering all ages an accessible and engaging link to such significant moments in Chinese history.