Cross-cultural opera takes 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music

Madame White Snake
An opera in 4 acts, based on an ancient Chinese myth. Scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano or male-soprano, tenor, bass soloists, SATB chorus, childrens chorus & orchestra with Chinese flute & erhu. English libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs

Composer Zhou Long was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his first opera, Madame White Snake.The opera, published by Oxford University Press, is based on an ancient Chinese transformation myth, similar to a fairy tale, which tells the tale of a mythical snake that transforms into a woman.

Zhou drew on influences from his native China, and the US, where he is now a resident, to produce the work, which the Pulitzer jury described as: "a deeply expressive opera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musical traditions of the East and the West."

The opera is a four-act work, which tells the story of a powerful white snake demon that surrenders her immortality in order to take on human form and experience love. It was commissioned by Opera Boston and premiered in February 2010 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston, USA, and an expanded version was premiered on 27 October 2010 at the Century Theatre in Beijing, China, at the Beijing International Festival.

Zhou said of the opera: “I feel this is my dream as a composer. This opera, I feel, is the summation of all my works in the past – chamber music, vocal pieces, orchestral, and choral.”



‘Zhou Long displays a stunning (quasi-tactile) orchestral imagination that dramatically demonstrates his skill of embedding elements of the two cultures in a consistent, seamless, and original musical language.’
American Academy of Arts and Letters

‘Zhou Long is one of a group of Chinese composers, brought up during the Cultural Revolution and now living in the West, who are creating striking works that fuse memories and music from the East with Western-style compositions. Drawing on Chinese folk songs, literature, poetry and history, they are the first generation of Chinese composers to be widely performed around the world.’
Newsweek International

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