CHEN SHI-ZHENG

Adaptor and director of Snow in June. Director, choreographer, singer, and actor. Born in China in 1963, studied with some of the great masters of Chinese opera, and became a leading traditional opera actor, performing in many productions throughout China. Mr. Chen emigrated to the United States in 1987 and has worked to create a new expression that crosses the boundaries between music, opera, theatre, and dance, and between nationalities. In 2000 he received the title of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government. His staging of Tang Xianzu's complete The Peony Pavilion premiered as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, and subsequently presented at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, at the Perth International Arts Festival, at the Aarhus Festival in Denmark, the Vienna Festival, the Berlin Festival, and the Esplanade Centre in Singapore. It has been filmed for home video distribution by RM Associates. Recent directing projects include The Orphan of Zhao for Lincoln Center Theatre; Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 with the Handel and Haydn Society; a documentary film, Cultural Warrior of the Revolution, produced by France3/LGM; a production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for the Spoleto Festival USA; Night Banquet, a chamber opera by Guo Wenjing co-commissioned by the Festival d'Automne à Paris, Kunstenfestival des Arts in Brussels, Hebbel-Theater in Berlin, and the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2002. Other credits as director and/or choreographer include Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, also presented at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris; Dido and Aeneas for the Spoleto USA Festival; New York City Opera's production of Turandot (1991-97); Chinoiserie by Ping Chong for the Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music; and Myth of the Hero with Paul Dresher for UCLA's World Cultural Arts Center. His 1996 production of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae, performed by China National Beijing Opera Company, attracted wide acclaim and toured to the Hong Kong International Festival of the Arts in February 1998 and the Athens Festival in the summer of 1998. That same year, he directed Alley, a new opera by Jack Body for the New Zealand International Festival for the Arts. Upcoming projects: Peach Blossom Fan for CalArts at Redcat in Disney Hall, Los Angeles (spring 2004); the film Dark Matter; and Impossible Love & Possible Death, an opera about Hans Christian Anderson for the Danish National Opera.

Artists Offstage