Please join a lively, behind-the-scenes discussion moderated online by Ken Smith (Opera/Opera News), with composer Huang Ruo, librettist and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, and Chinese Heritage Foundation’s Pearl Lam Bergad, to dig deeper into the multiple layers of translation that bring The Monkey King (猴王悟空) to vibrant, revelatory life in this pulse-of-the-moment contemporary adaptation.
This San Francisco Opera world-premiere commission is drawn from the opening episodes in Journey to the West (16th c.), a Ming dynasty novel widely considered one of China’s greatest literary classics. The Monkey King follows the ambition of its title character, who wreaks havoc in the heavens in a bid for justice and equality, as well as belonging and freedom of expression. Join this preview of the production’s world premiere as part of San Francisco Opera’s fall 2025 season.
Under the leadership of Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock and Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim, San Francisco Opera is a global leader for presenting opera, training young artists and fostering repertory-expanding new works, a tradition which continues this November with the world premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King. Beginning with its first seasons during the 1920s, San Francisco Opera has long been a home for new operas and, since 1961, more than 30 new commissions and co-commissions have been presented by the Company. A focus on the Chinese and Chinese American literary traditions began in 2008 with the world premiere of The Bonesetter’s Daughter by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Amy Tan.
David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (2024 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival broadcast on PBS Great Performances), Chinglish, The Dance and the Railroad and FOB, as well as the musicals Soft Power, Flower Drum Song and international Disney hits Aida and Tarzan. Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, he has written thirteen libretti, including Dream of the Red Chamber with music by Bright Sheng (San Francisco Opera 2016), Ainadamar with music by Osvaldo Golijov (Metropolitan Opera premiere 2024) and five operas with Philip Glass. The Monkey King is his fourth opera with composer Huang Ruo. Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair and co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop legend Prince. He is a Tony Award winner and four-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. A professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2018, the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild in 2025.
Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.” Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music. Ruo’s music is published by Schott/EAM: (www.huangruo.com)
Pearl Lam Bergad is a long-time volunteer in the Asian community of the Twin Cities, particularly in Chinese arts and culture, including initiating the concert, Hún Qiáo [Bridge of Souls], A Concert of Remembrance and Reconciliation, to commemorate WWII in Asia. Since 2004 she has been the Executive Director of the Chinese Heritage Foundation, where her many initiatives to promote mutual understanding and trust among the greater Minnesota community and beyond include A Passage to China, an interactive festival at Mall of America, and underwriting the commissioning of Dream of the Red Chamber for San Francisco Opera; as well as endowing fellowships and scholarships at the University of Minnesota to encourage the studies of the Chinese language and history. Currently the Foundation is underwriting the commissioning of The Monkey King for San Francisco Opera.
Journalist and author Ken Smith has traveled widely, covering arts and culture on five continents for a wide range of print, broadcast and internet media. Since 2002 he has divided his time between New York and Hong Kong, where he has regularly covered China’s classical music scene for the Financial Times, among other publications. A winner of the 2020 SOPA Award for arts and culture reporting and the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music writing, he is a frequent contributor to Opera magazine of London, a consulting editor and monthly columnist for Opera magazine in Shanghai and a jury member of the International Opera Awards in London.