Tea
"a mirror of soul"
Tan Dun & Xu Ying

Set & Costumes.........Christof Cremer
Light design.........Norbert Chmel
Conductor.........Walter Kobéra

première: 11 September 2007, Semperdepot, Vienna
company: Neue Oper Wien, Austria

Reviews

Ritual wrapped in white paper
An impressive start to the season, acclaimed by the audience!
Carlos Wagner has, in conjunction with designer Christof Cremer, developed a ritual, that perfectly fits into the space of the Semper-Depot: A production in white, with paper as the main material.Cremer created a performing space - the floor of yellow sand - of ideal unity, harmony and Spartan beauty. Pure aestheticism, that never becomes and end in itself, however. These strictly ritualised three acts that tell the courting of a Japanese Prince for a Chinese princess flow seamlessly. The action full of symbols, gestures and magical allusions is meticulously created by these young singers.

Neue Kronen Zeitung

Tea: A Mirror of Soul, Neue Oper Wien, 9/11/07
With Tan Dun's Tea: A Mirror of Soul, music director Walter Kobéra, director Carlos Wagner, set and costume designer Christof Cremer and lighting designer Norbert Chmel created a unique treat for the senses.
Cremer's five-tiered arena rose from a circular playing area covered with raked sand. Impossibly long sheets of paper streamed from the heights of the atrium, some serving as percussion instruments. The audience was seated on cushions and given fans. The stylized costumes were sumptuous, and absolutely everything - even the orchestra's outfits - was white. Occasional bursts of color provide pleasant visual shocks. 
Wagner injects humor into his ingenious, exquisite sequence of rituals: during a long ceremony, cups of tea are passed to audience members by monks; Lan and Seikyo journey on a sedan chair fitted with airline seats, while a monk demonstrates safety precautions Kabuki-style.

Opera News

A visually enthralling Journey into distant cultures
In the Semper-Depot in Vienna Neue Oper Wien now ventures into Tan Dun's exceedingly unwieldy story about the art of drinking tea. With success, because director Carlos Wagner has found beguilingly beautiful images for the sparse plot. Cornelia Horak (princess) Klemens Sander (prince) Alexander Kaimbacher (brother) as well as Steven Gallop and Maren Engelhardt act enthusiastically in this excursion into distant cultures.

Kurier

White coats, sedan chairs and sand as background
Carlos Wagner stages ingenuously even ironically - for example when the search for the book begins, and the sedan chair is converted into a paper plane. Here a flight attendant shows the usual escape-route oxygen mask routine: a nice parallel to the aesthetic rituals of the Far East. Also very beautiful the falling leaves and the sword duel at the end. Doubly admirable the singers. . .

wiener zeitung