Arts | MGM mixes opera with tech

MGM presented its final installation for the Hua Yuan exhibition, “Paradise Interrupted,” over the weekend.

This installation, which integrates interactive technology, tells the story of a woman searching for an unattainable ideal in a world that comes to life through her singing, as she attempts to return to a garden.

Co-produced by Spoleto Festival USA, the Lincoln Center Festival, Singapore International Festival of Arts and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, the exhibition weaves the stories of the Garden of Eden and Peony Pavilion with a composition that merges a 600-year-old Kun opera with contemporary Western opera.

Through the use of interactive technology, a host of digital characters interacted with the heroine.

The director and designer of the opera is visual artist Jennifer Ma, while the composition, which is both a celebration of tradition and a new masterpiece, is by Huang Ruo.

Qian Yi, who plays the heroine in the opera, has been lauded by The New York Times as “China’s reigning opera princess.”

The Hua Yuan exhibition is being held at MGM Cotai as part of Art Macao. The exhibition has three large-scale multimedia and art installations, including “Journey to the Dark II,” “A Metamorphosis: No End to End” and “Paradise Interrupted.”

MGM previously noted in a statement that through Hua Yuan, the essence of Chinese culture and art is being preserved and progressed.

Since ink has played a pivotal role in Chinese history and culture, and it remains as relevant today as it was over 5,000 years ago, MGM has invited contemporary artists Ma and Yang Yongliang to explore “the inherent beauty of ink.”

Ma uses ink’s intrinsic connectivity and diversity to present a large-scale multimedia and art installation of three gardens, as well as an installation opera that combines tradition and innovation.

The opera is rendered in ink and reinterpreted as a kunqu- inspired installation opera in one act.

Yang merges technology and photography to create a breakthrough in the transformation of classical Chinese ink.

“Journey to the Dark II” is a reinterpretation of a traditional Chinese painting that is showcased through multi-channel 4k video.

The artist uses urban architecture as a brush and the layered mountains of a Song-dynasty landscape painting as a compositional blueprint. LV