Opera Boston production wins Pulitzer

Composer Zhou Long won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Musicyesterday for "Madame White Snake," the first opera commissioned byOpera Boston - and the first one he has written.

The prize is "really something heavyweight to me . . . I feel Ihave been recognized," Zhou said by phone from his home in KansasCity, Mo. "I have been working very hard to blend the East and theWest for years."

For Opera Boston, the Pulitzer "helps endorse our mission topromote and present the unusual instead of the traditional andstandard," said Gil Rose , the company's artistic director. "It's areal endorsement of what we're trying to do here."

Opera Boston gave the world premiere of "Madame White Snake" onFeb. 26, 2010, at the Cutler Majestic Theatre with threeperformances (and one preview) conducted by Rose in a productiondirected by Robert Woodruff.

The Pulitzer citation described the work as "a deeply expressiveopera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musicaltraditions of the East and the West."

First-time librettist and retired Boston attorney Cerise LimJacobs, a Brookline resident, wrote the text based on the Chineselegend about a white snake demon who transforms into a beautifulwoman so she can experience love. She brought it to Opera Boston,and Rose recommended Zhou as the composer.

"We wanted a Chinese composer and we considered several people,"Rose said. "I felt Zhou was ready to write an opera. He had a strongdramatic sense to his music and he had written several vocal pieces,so he could work with text. . . . What else do you need?"

"Zhou's score is often quite inventive in its fusing of Easternand Western traditions, and there is some arresting instrumental andvocal writing," the Globe's Jeremy Eichler wrote in his review ofthe premiere.

Zhou, 57, is visiting professor of composition at the Universityof Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. He was borninto an artistic family in Beijing but exiled to a rural farm duringthe Cultural Revolution. He came to the United States in 1985 on afellowship to Columbia University. A US citizen since 1999, Zhou ismarried to composer-violinist Chen Yi.

In the production, soprano Ying Huang starred as Madame WhiteSnake and Peter Tantsits as Xu Xian, the love of her life -although their marriage ends in tragedy.

The opera was cocommissioned with the Beijing Music Festival ArtsFoundation and was performed in China last fall with the same fourmain singers but with Chinese musicians, conductors, and chorus.

Zhou said he was taking a nap yesterday afternoon when his wifewoke him to say that calls were coming in and something washappening. "We checked the Internet and it looks like it's real,"Zhou said with a laugh, calling the win "a total surprise."

Rose was in rehearsal for Opera Boston's upcoming "Maria Padilla"at the Boston Center for the Arts yesterday and had switched hisphone to vibrate, but "so many texts came in at one point that I hadto look." He was taken by surprise but was able to reach Zhou tocongratulate him.

"It's great for him and I'm so happy for him and for OperaBoston's first commission to win the Pulitzer Prize," said Rose. Asfor fund-raising, he said, "it couldn't hurt."

The five-member Pulitzer jury that awarded the prize includedcomposer William Banfield, a professor at Berklee College of Music.

Joel Brown can be reached at jbnbpt@gmail.com

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