Igor Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale" (2009) in Shanghai
A performance with musicians, narrator and more
Lyceum Theater, Shanghai CHINA
Chinese narration: Fri. March 6 + Sat. March 7, 2009
English narration: Sun. March 8, 2009
Presented by
XinYa KongQi Chamber Orchestra, Dir. Nick Smith
Produced/Directed by Alison M. Friedman
Choreographed by Angelina Lin
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Fairytales are meant to be timeless, and as such the Soldier in The Soldier’s Tale represents the universal Everyman. I see both the Devil and the Princess as representing the temptations he faces: desires, greed, ambition even; forces that drive us to leave home, be unsatisfied with our jobs or love-lives, forces that goad us to strive for more or at least for something else. These are not necessarily evil forces but forces to be reckoned with nonetheless, for they appear again and again in many guises and can trick us into giving up more than we bargained for if we are not careful. As the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Upon reading The Soldier’s Tale, I was struck by how a story written in Switzerland in 1918 could be so relevant to China nearly a century later. As this nation marches “down the hot and dusty road” of development, what is it sacrificing in exchange? Is it true, to paraphrase the Narrator, that past and present identities cannot and even should not co-exist? How, then, does one choose? And is that choice even ours to make?
Alison M. Friedman