Willem Jeths born 1959 - Text by Friso Haverkamp

Hôtel de Pékin

Dreams for a Dragon Queen 2008

The death of Cixi (1835-1908), the last Empress of China, brought to a close a 2000-year-old dynasty and with it the end of the celestial rule of the Dragon throne. The founder of the Qing dynasty, after whom it was named, was the first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, the legendary builder of the Great Wall of China whose terracotta army was buried with him.

Hôtel de Pékin, the opera written by librettist Friso Haverkamp and composer Willem Jeths as a commission from the Nationale Reisopera, takes the form of a sequence of eighteen interconnected dreams – hence its subtitle, ‘Dreams for a Dragon Queen’ – in which Cixi looks back over her life as she lies dying. These scenes are part fiction, part history, and create a portrait of Cixi, one of the most complex and controversial characters in China’s recent history, and a tragic ruler in turbulent times.

The opera suggests that China cannot continue in the old ways, but must undergo a period of rapid social change. A new China, built on the achievements of the once-great Emperor Qin with whom Cixi is united in death, can be glimpsed through the perspective of the feared and reviled Cixi,. A ‘Liebestod’ begins and ends with one death long ago and another centuries later, and points to a different future. Hôtel de Pékin takes as its subject the apparent paradox of death as the condition for a resurrected China. Here, contemporary events unfold as part of a living past.

Willem Jeths’ unique musical idiom is combined in an effortless synthesis with the sound world of the Chinese Empire. The combination of Chinese sounds and instruments with Western symphonic styles results in a very individual interpretation of the essence of Chinese music.

It would be impossible for a single opera to encompass every facet of a personality as complex as Cixi. Since her death, Cixi’s life and times have been subjected to propaganda and plunder by later rulers and her reputation as Empress has been radically rewritten or effaced. Hôtel de Pékin dares to redress the balance. It is not only a sometimes critical tribute to China, but also an attempt to combine European and Chinese operatic traditions in a single performance.

This opera is sung in English.