Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s ‘The Monkey King’ persuasively conjured the spirit of Chinese opera; Matthew Ozawa’s new Wagner production had admirable clarity.
By
Heidi Waleson
Nov. 19, 2025 at 4:31 pm ET
Kang Wang in ‘The Monkey King.’ CORY WEAVER/SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
San Francisco
Huang Ruo’s “The Monkey King,” which had its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on Friday, successfully fuses two very different traditions. Based on the opening chapters of “Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng’en, a foundational Chinese novel from 1592, it presents its rebellious, trickster antihero—a monkey born from a magic stone, who challenges gods and rulers—in all his colorful, anarchic glory. Mr. Huang skillfully manipulates the musical language of Western opera, adding only gongs, Chinese cymbals and a pipa (a plucked instrument) to the orchestra, to conjure up the spirit of Chinese opera.
When the work opens, the Monkey King (tenor Kang Wang) has been imprisoned under the Five-Element Mountain for 500 years; David Henry Hwang’s libretto tells how he got there in compact flashback episodes. We see him emerge from the stone, assume leadership of the other monkeys, and, in a quest for immortality, attempt to study with a Buddhist master (bass-baritone Jusung Gabriel Park) only to be thrown out for his pride. He wrests a magic weapon from the undersea Dragon King (baritone Joo Won Kang), challenges the corrupt Jade Emperor of the heavens (tenor Konu Kim), and is captured and thrust into a furnace, from which he emerges even stronger. Yet throughout, the Buddha (Mr. Park) and Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy (soprano Mei Gui Zhang), watch over him, waiting for him to understand the lesson that “Power is not enough. Power is given to be given away.”
Mei Gui Zhang as Guanyin. CORY WEAVER/SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
Mr. Huang’s propulsive, rhythmic score, expertly paced by conductor Carolyn Kuan, speeds the Monkey King’s adventures. Much of the solo vocal writing is stentorian and talky, moving the story along. The exceptions are the lyrical prayers (in Mandarin) and arias of Guanyin, who floats above the action in a glowing, teardrop-shaped shrine; the sutra chants (also in Mandarin) of the Bodhisattvas (those on the path to enlightenment); and the Monkey King’s final aria, in which he finally stops charging ahead and looks within.
To encompass all his attributes—flying, acrobatics, transformations and the like—the Monkey King is played by a dancer (Huiwang Zhang) and a puppet as well as the singer. Lord Erlang, his principal military opponent, is also both a singer (Joo Won Kang) and a dancer (Marcos Vedovetto).
The production, directed by Diane Paulus, with set design and puppetry direction and design by Basil Twist—who can turn a length of silk into a mountain, a horse, or a waterfall—vaults the piece into the vivid fantasy realm of Chinese opera. Together with the gorgeous projection designs of Hana S. Kim—many of them in classic Chinese painting style—and the lighting of Ayumu “Poe” Saegusa, on scrims and backdrops of billowing curtains, the staging is a brilliant, constantly changing spectacle.
A scene from ‘The Monkey King.’ CORY WEAVER/SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
There’s a submarine landscape of bubbles and jellyfish; a radiant garden of flowers; a battle with flying swords and shields and a swirling snake puppet. The Monkey King frees six puppet horses, who rise above the stage on long poles; he staggers out of the furnace with glowing red eyes. Five fabric mountain peaks curl over him as he discovers that he is not, as he thought, in the Land of Bliss, but in the Buddha’s palm, and the mountains are the Buddha’s fingers, imprisoning him. Anita Yavich’s vivid costumes—from the Monkey King’s feather plumes to the jewel-toned regalia of the Jade Emperor’s hard-partying court—and Ann Yee’s athletic choreography complete the effect.
Other members of the fine cast included more of the Monkey King’s adversaries—bass Peixin Chen as Supreme Sage Laojun and mezzo Hongni Wu as Venus Star. Happily, the Monkey King does learn his lesson after 500 years. But there could be more. “Journey to the West” has 100 chapters, and the composer has floated the idea of a Chinese “Ring” cycle.
Tanja Ariane Baumgartner and Brandon Jovanovich in ‘Parsifal.’ CORY WEAVER/SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
The “Monkey King” premiere took place the day after the final performance of Matthew Ozawa’sthoughtful new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal,” a very different tale about ignorance and enlightenment. Mr. Ozawa’s direction tells the opera’s story clearly without anchoring it in any specific time, place, or religious tradition. Japanese-inspired costumes (Jessica Jahn); a rotating set that ingeniously transforms the Grail knights’ realm from forest to temple (Robert Innes Hopkins); choreography (Rena Butler) deployed for both ritual and storytelling purposes; and lighting (Yuki Nakase Link) that keeps pace with the musical and narrative flow combine to create a vision of a fractured world in need of healing.
Conductor Eun Sun Kim, her tempi flexible and unindulgent and her dynamics well-calibrated, never forgot that “Parsifal” is an opera, not a religious service. Brandon Jovanovich, singing the title role, was unwell, but faltered only slightly in the most forceful moments of Act 2. Kwangchul Youn was a mesmerizing storyteller as Gurnemanz; Brian Mulligan a poignant, agonized Amfortas; Falk Struckmann a powerful Klingsor. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner was a fascinating Kundry, her superficial villainy barely concealing her longing for redemption. She achieves it—and, instead of dropping dead at the end, as usual, lifts the Grail in tandem with Parsifal. That detail, along with the choreographed gesture for Amfortas’s pain; the presence of a dancer (Charmaine Butcher) as Parsifal’s mother; and Klingsor’s imprisoned women, wrapped like a spider’s prey and hanging upside down from the flies, helped give this production its indelible visual signature.
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