At the Gate of Judgment, The Guard (played by Christie) stands in judgment as three literary heroines who killed themselves for love — Shakespeare's Juliet (sung by a Western operatic soprano), Yu Ji of Farewell My Concubine (played by a Beijing Opera actress), and the courtesan Koharu (performed by a bunraku puppeteer) from the 18th-century Japanese epic The Love Suicides at Amijima Chikamatsu — plead their cases to be reborn.
Nancy Allen Lundy takes the role of Juliet, with Song Yang as Yu Ji and Hua Hua Zhang as Koharu. Joining Christie and the Brooklyn Philharmonic are the three men of the Talujon Percussion Group. The trio will open the program with Tan Dun's Water Music, a title which Tan took far more literally than Handel could have dreamed: the work is comprised of rhythms and melodies made solely with water.
The Gate and Water Music will receive three performances — this evening and Friday and Saturday (Dec. 7 and 8) — at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House. On Friday after the performance, there will be a special BAMdialogue with Christie and Tan Dun about the project. Information and tickets (priced at $20, $45 and $60) are available at www.BAM.org.
