The music is inspired by a surreal image from the third act of the future opera:
Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) barges in unceremoniously at an official state banquet in Beijing, hangs paper lanterns, and begins a seductive dance. A huge, 40-foot portrait of Mao Zedong on the wall comes to life: the Chairman steps out of the painting to dance a foxtrot with his wife, transporting them back to their youth.
Toward the end of the piece, the tempo slows, mimicking the stop of a gramophone. The music fades to a measured, mechanical, clicking rhythm of percussion (using sandpaper blocks and piano), leaving a sense of a ghost of the past dissolving.
Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt |
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