Marco Polo is an opera in two acts by the Chinese-born composer Tan Dun with an English libretto by the writer and critic Paul Griffiths. It premiered at the Munich Biennale on 7 May 1996 in a staging by Martha Clarke.
The work divides the title figure into two characters—Marco (mezzo-soprano) and Polo (tenor)—and interleaves a spiritual “Book of Timespace” with episodes inspired by the Venetian’s travels. The scoring combines standard Western orchestra and chorus with instruments associated with the cultures evoked in the drama, including pipa, sheng, tabla and Tibetan horns.
The opera originated in a late-1980s commission from the Edinburgh International Festival. Although intended for Edinburgh, the completed work premiered at the 1996 Munich Biennale.[2] Griffiths’s earlier novel Myself and Marco Polo has been cited in connection with the opera’s genesis, although the libretto is not a direct adaptation.[3][4]
The opera presents Marco Polo’s expedition as three overlapping journeys: physical travel from an Italian piazza toward China’s Great Wall, a spiritual “Book of Timespace” (Winter–Spring–Summer–Autumn) in which “shadows” of historical figures appear, and a parallel musical journey. Marco embodies action and being, while Polo embodies memory. The three strands converge at the Great Wall, a symbolic threshold the merged “Marco Polo” must cross.[4]
Recordings
Marco Polo (CD Sony 62912) - World premiere recording with Thomas Young and Alexandra Montano in the title roles, the Cappella Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer. Recorded live at Yakult Hall, Amsterdam on 20 June 1996.
Marco Polo (DVD Opus Arte OA1010D) - The 2008 production of the opera by De Nederlandse Opera, with Charles Workman and Sarah Castle in the title roles and conducted by the composer.
↑ Guzski, Carolyn (Autumn 2016). "Ophelia at Carnegie Hall | The Hudson Review". hudsonreview.com. Retrieved 2025-10-31. Griffiths himself is no stranger to the lyric art—his enigmatic debut novel Myself and Marco Polo served as the basis of the Tan Dun opera Marco Polo (coincidentally, a 1998 Grawemeyer Award winner)—but the often elliptical prose he favors can grow tedious in the absence of formal rigor.
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