San Francisco Opera is now presenting he world premiere of The Monkey King by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang November 14–30 at the War Memorial Opera House.
This new works is said to be “an action-hero opera” centering around the mythical Monkey King (Sun Wukong), a perennial favorite in Chinese culture for more than four hundred years.
The work is said to be popular in movies, television, animation and, most recently, the 2024 video game Black Myth: Wukong.
Commissioned by San Francisco Opera in partnership with the Chinese Heritage Foundation of Minnesota, The Monkey King is based on the opening episodes of Journey to the West, the Ming Dynasty novel attributed to Wu Cheng’en and considered one of China’s four greatest literary classics.
This new adaptation for the opera stage, performed in English and Mandarin and uniting the disciplines of opera, dance and puppetry, follows the ambitious young monkey who is born from a stone and challenges the gods of the seas and heavens in a bid for immortality.
Local critics have yet to evaluate the production