Lush nostalgia from pre-revolutionary China

Raising some urgently needed cash and doing its bit to smooth Anglo-Chinese relations, English National Opera is hosting the Shanghai Opera House’s local debut. The short visit focuses on a single work: Thunderstorm, by the composer Mo Fan, based on the celebrated Thirties play of the same name by “China’s Ibsen”, Cao Yu (1910-1996).

Labelled “modern opera”, to distinguish it from the traditional Peking Opera genre, Thunderstorm was premiered in 2006 but could have been written a century ago. This marks its European premiere. Mo Fan leans stylistically towards Massenet and Puccini at their lushest, and his greatest virtue is brevity. His scoring for Westernstyle orchestra (flowingly conducted by Zhang Guoyong) also allows such traditional instruments as the pipa and erhu to make haunting interventions.

Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the Shanghai Opera House boasts a wide repertoire, including Western works and communist-era pieces, but this is an exercise in prerevolutionary nostalgia.

Thunderstorm follows a singular trajectory, with its drama of the wealthy Zhou family in the early 20th century reduced by a onedimensional libretto. This tale of a dynasty traces their affairs and entanglements across the class divide, and the corrupt patriarch Zhou Puyuan loses his entire family in a day when the stories of unwitting incest unravel.

It might seem less melodramatic in another production, but Zha Mingzhe’s staging is statically formulaic. The chorus is mostly seated on the staircases of Luo Jiangtao’s set, representing the family mansion, in which just about the only changes are effected by remote-controlled furniture.

Despite some acting by semaphore, the cast acquits itself well and shows that the Shanghai company is vocally rich.