Synopsis
Opera When the Purple Mountains Burn involves collaboration between
composer Shuying Li and librettist, stage designer and director, Julian
Crouch. The opera explores the connection between Iris Chang and Shiro
Azuma with the Nanking Massacre that happened in China during World War
II. Iris Chang, an American Chinese best-seller author whose book, “The
Rape of Nanking” forever changed the way people view the Second World
War in Asia. By uncovering the cruel truths to the world, she got
trapped in depression later and committed suicide at age 36; Rooted in a
different time at a different space, Shiro Azuma was a Japanese soldier
who openly admitted his participation in Japanese war crimes against
the Chinese during the World War II.
The
opera explores the following question on social justice and humanity:
what is it in us humans that could unleash the catastrophic power for
one part of humanity to massacre and defile another part of humanity? We
intend to present a story that’s told by the seemingly unrelated Iris
and Shiro, waved with a journalist’s powerful message and a soldier’s
deep confession, to a universal song that will resonant with all human
beings. The fairy story of Hansel and Gretel is told by Iris’s mother,
Ying Ying in the opera as an agency to connect the two main characters
in a poetic way.