The Bonesetter's Daughter Opera

Amy Tan's Novel Now Brought to the Stage

Sep 29, 2008 Sarah Canice Funke

Amy Tan, the author of five New York Times bestsellers, two children's books and numerous magazine articles, is finally trying her hand at an opera libretto.

Chinese-American Amy Tan had already adapted one of her books, The Joy Luck Club, to screen and has now translated her novel The Bonesetter's Daughter to stage. The opera version of Tan's story was premiered by the San Francisco Opera on September 13, 2008.

The Bonesetter's Daughter: Ghosts, Mothers, Daughters, and Tan's Family History

The Bonesetter's Daughter tells the tale of a woman haunted by the ghost of her mother. The story is based on events in Tan's own family history: Tan's grandmother committed suicide after being raped, having a baby and losing face with the rest of the family. In Chinese culture, committing suicide meant that your spirit could come back as a ghost to seek revenge. Through death, the helpless gained the power to right their own wrongs.

Tan did not discover these family secrets until her adult life, but through her work, Tan's grandmother finally gets the voice she had lost over 80 years ago. In The Bonesetter's Daughter, Tan's grandmother "returns" to our world as the character Precious Auntie. This ghostly figure acts as a protecting spirit for her daughter, but one whose protection could even resort to killing to save its charge from harm. Yet after turbulent storms, the mother-daughter relationship finally achieves peace, the past finally at rest with the present.

The bonesetter to which the title alludes is Precious Auntie's father, who left her an heirloom: a dragon bone which will bring immortality. The bone, a highly coveted treasure, also plays a role in the story, bringing both strife and revenge.

Libretto by Tan and Music by Wallace: Turning The Bonesetter's Daughter into a Chinese-American Opera

Amy Tan worked with composer Stewart Wallace to bring her novel to stage. The experience of writing a libretto stretched Tan's writing talents with specific challenges. Tan had to strip her words down to the bare emotions in order to reach something that would translate well to an emotionally evocative medium.

The opera is in two acts. After a prologue set outside of time, the opera begins (and ends) in the present, as the daughter LuLing interacts with a daughter of her own, the modern Ruth Young Kamen. LuLing is on the verge of insanity, but no one knows why. The events of Precious Auntie's life transport the audience to the past, revealing the family's secrets and bringing meaning and reconciliation to the present. Wallace's music matches the familial tensions that pervade the opera.

Amy Tan: Author of the Joy Luck Club, Lecturer and Editor

Amy Tan's novels include The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning. She has also written two children's books entitled The Moon Lady and Sagwa. The latter book has also been set to music by the composer Nathan Wang.

She has given lectures at universities around the world, including Stanford, Oxford, Jagellonium, Beijing, and Georgetown (both in Washington DC and Doha, Qatar). The National Endowment for the Arts chose The Joy Luck Club for its 2007 "Big Read" program. Tan also serves as the Literary Editor for the Los Angeles Times magazine, West.

Sources

Lyden, Jacki. "Amy Tan: Novelist Turned Librettist." September 13, 2008. NPR Music.

Amy Tan biography on website.

"The Bonesetter's Daughter: Synopsis." San Francisco Opera website.

The copyright of the article The Bonesetter's Daughter Opera in Classical Music is owned by Sarah Canice Funke. Permission to republish The Bonesetter's Daughter Opera in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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