San Francisco Opera has a spectacular hit with ‘Monkey King’

Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s work based on a Chinese folktale impresses.

- MARK SWED MUSIC CRITIC

Photographs by CORY WEAVER San Francisco Opera
HUIWANG ZHANG performs as the dancer Monkey King at War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Opera’s hit new opera, Huang Ruo’s “The Monkey King,” which had its final performance Sunday at War Memorial Opera House, quickly became the hottest show in town, all its performances sold out.

It was the talk of the town, an opera with a little something for everyone, an opera that that stands for something culturally, spiritually and ethically. It operates at the intersections of pop art and highish art, of the sacred and profane, of radicalism and die-hardism. It is fittingly multicultural for a multicultural city. It invites you to leave the theater feeling better about the world. Yet what makes this potentially the most important new opera of the year is not Huang’s agreeably efficient — and once in a while inspired — score, which incorporates Western and traditional music. Nor is it David Henry Hwang’s userfriendly libretto based on the late Ming Dynasty Chinese classic, “Journey to the West.” The potential this opera signals is for a major cultural change for San Francisco. In the green room of the opera house at the Nov. 20 performance, founder and CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, and his wife, Lori Huang, announced a $5-million gift to San Francisco Opera to help fund the production of the “Monkey King,” which the company commissioned, and a commitment to continue an annual $5-million contribution to the company. That may seem like pocket change for Nvidia, having three weeks earlier became the first company in the world valued at $5 trillion (which is 1 million times $5 million). But one small step for a chip maker is a big leap for opera and Silicon Valley, where arts philanthropy has not been a meaningful priority.