The First Emperor, created by composer Tan Dun and directed by Zhang Yimou, premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in December. 

I'm glad I had not seen Tan Dun's new opera The First Emperor when I wrote about its critical feedback and the composer's defense ("How the West was won or not", January 12, 2007). It would have been difficult not to bring my own feelings into it.

The one I did catch later on was a recent high-definition transmission into theaters of the Metropolitan Opera performance on January 13. And a technical glitch skipped some 15 minutes over the end of Act I.

This Emperor is not perfect, but no way is it a total flop. The melding of Chinese musical elements enriched the expressiveness of the essentially Western art form, in which Tan's work is rooted. The instrumental part is especially colorful, with tinges of Chinese sounds seeping into the bones.

Strangely, it is the role of the Yin Yang Master that I found has failed to be "the eye of the dragon", so to speak, as I had expected. The voice was weak, and the role, as a variation of the Greek chorus, was somewhat imposed on the palette.

The big arias and choruses, with melodic lines and fetching accompaniment, were quite rewarding. Several of them have the potential to turn into hum-able numbers of a standard repertory. It is the duets that failed to click with me. Although Tan had done away with recitatives, singing for the sake of exposition, no matter how dramatic the vocal lines are written, just feel weird to a modern ear. It's a problem with all contemporary operas, not just this one.

But when the characters begin to emote, Tan did not disappoint. As a matter of fact, the long passages of singing are mostly brilliant, at least to my taste. And I bet the subtle effects, which he added with such ingenuity, would be much effective if recorded in a studio with the New Age-like sounds better balanced.

The libretto, written by Ha Jin and Tan Dun, takes a character with stark moral contrast and imbues him with ambivalence. Here Emperor Qin is not simply a tyrant or a unifier of China, but both. His inner struggles may not be historically accurate, but psychologically convincing. What's more, many of the details have such relevance that they may resonate more than the authors intend. The second part, with emphasis on recounting rather than playing out the plot, is even better than the linear narration in Act I.

The singers were uniformly stellar, tackling the Eastern sounds with gusto and authenticity. Placido Domingo brought more humanness to the role, which most Chinese abhor as a ruthless despot, and portrayed him most of all as a father.

You have to give credit to Zhang Yimou and his team because the visual part almost stole spotlight from the production.

The partition of the stage with numerous blocks created such infinite possibilities that it turned into the Great Wall, the royal palace or other settings with just the right balance of abstractness and reality.

It is more tastefully artful than Zhang's previous operatic outing in Turandot, or any of his other stage productions, yet still retains his signature spectacle.

(China Daily March 15, 2007)