News and stuff

The British singer and song-writer Damon Albarn (ex lead singer of pop group 'Blur' and currently 'Gorillaz') has written a new opera - Monkey: Journey to the West, in mandarin, to be shown at the inaugurating Manchester International Festival. The opera is commissioned by the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, directed by Chen Shi-Zheng (陈士争) and willopen on June 28th 2007.

The opera is based on a well known 16 century book Journey to the West (西游记), centering around the odyssey of the Monkey King. Considered to be one of the four Chinese classical literature masterpieces, it has been adopted into various forms, including Chinese opera, movie and TV, many times, but not Western opera. British audiences have familiarised with the story from the 70s TV series of Japanese import. Damon Albarn and the set and costume designer Jamie Hewlett, were invited by the Chinese-American director Chen Shi-Zheng (Dark Matter) into the project. Before they started, they had travelled around China for three weeks to understand and learn the music.

Damon Albarn :
Born : East End, London, UK, March 23, 1968
Previous : Blur, Gorillaz,
Ivor Novello 'Song writer of the year' 2006 - joint winner

Jaimie Hewlett :
Born : Horsham, West Sussex, UK, April 3rd, 1968
Previous : Artist and designer : Gorillaz, Tank Girl,
Ivor Novello 'Song writer of the year' - 2006 - joint winner
Design Museum's 'Designer Of The Year' - 2006

Ghen Shi-Zheng:
Born : Changsha, Hunan, China, 1963
Previous : Dark matter, Night banquet, Myth of the Hero,

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