This year, the Borealis festival opening night presents a brand new chamber opera from renowned Norwegian-Finnish composer Tze Yeung Ho. Join us to celebrate with a stage full of performers from Norway and Hong Kong, an intriguing tale of an empress of the Qing dynasty, woven together by an exciting musical universe pulling on inspiration from both Nordic and Chinese musical traditions.

The complex story of a dowager empress – hailed as both moderniser and tyrant – Nara is a brand new chamber opera exploring power and ambiguity, diving deep into a fascinating moment of Chinese history, as centuries of Imperial rule was coming to an end. Drawing inspiration from his own heritage in Hong Kong, Tze Yeung creates an operatic world that blends Chinese and Western classical elements, featuring musicians from Hong Kong alongside a cast of Nordic singers, including acclaimed mezzo Hege Høisæter and the multifaceted drag performer and composer Josh Spear.

Empress Dowager Cixi’s life is steeped in contradictions. Often depicted as a cruel tyrant, she also moved China moderately towards reform. The opera circles around a moment at the very end of the 19th Century and her life, when Cixi attempted to ban the centuries old practice of foot binding – a brutal, crippling custom that altered the shape of women’s feet to symbolise status and beauty. Today, historians are divided on both Cixi’s reputation and her motivations for reform, and the opera explores this space of contradiction in the legends of the Qing dynasty’s last influential ruler.

Alongside musicians from the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and traditional music performers The Gong Strikes One, Tze Yeung is joined by Norwegian writer Linda Gabrielsen, stage director Ellen Seligman, choreographer Emmi Pennanen, scenographer Magnus Pind and costume designer Sofia Pantouvaki in creating an immersive operatic experience that transcends cultural and historical boundaries.

Supported by Arts and Culture Norway, Nordic Culture Point, Nordic Culture Fund, The Audio and Visual Fund, The Writers Guild & The Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute. HKNME supported by Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC). Part of New Perspectives for Action – a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.