The School of Arts and Humanities and the Confucius Institute at UT Dallas will host a workshop Saturday, Feb. 2, in anticipation of the Chinese Opera’s performance of  Farewell My Concubine at the Eisemann Center in Richardson the following week.

Xiang Yu (Sun Li) takes Yu Jin (Ruan Yuqun) in his arms and the two lovers prepare to say their final farewells.

Featured speakers will include the internationally-renowned Chinese composer Xiao Bai, symphony conductor Yu Feng and several of the major performers from the opera.  A DVD preview of the opera will be shown at the event, and a question-and-answer session will follow.

Bai’s Farewell My Concubine is a completely reinterpreted, Western-style opera with new music and staging.  It is based on the ill-fated romance of a historical warlord in China.

The opera premiered in Beijing in October 2007 and is now on tour in the United States.  It will be at the Eisemann Center Feb. 5-6.

A pair of tickets to the opera will be given away at the workshop.   The event will begin at 2 p.m. in the Jonsson Performance Hall on campus.  It is free and open to the public.

For directions to the Jonsson Performance Hall, please visit http://ah.utdallas.edu/facilities/performance_hall.html.

More information: About this production of Farewell My Concubine, visit The Eisemann Center Web site at http://www.eisemanncenter.com.


The central characters of Farewell My Concubine are the brave Xiang Yu (above) and his lover. The plot unfolds amid the backdrop of an actual military conflict that shook China 2,200 years ago.