...Of all the hundreds of characters and intricate plots across which ROTK ranges, Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and composer Guo Wenjing have chosen the merest sliver as the subject for their new opera, Feng Yi Ting, which sees its American premiere at the Dock Street Theatre on May 27. The upshot: The empire hangs on a thread. A powerful aristocrat named Dong Zhuo plays the emperor like a puppet and terrorizes the population. His adopted godson, a showboating general named Lü Bu, is the brawn to Zhuo's brain. Enter minister Wang Yun, a world-class schemer with an ace up his sleeve by the name of Diao Chan, a svelte tigress upon whose lovely head Yun hatches a diabolical plan: to cause both Dong and Lü to fall madly in love with her, after which she is to wield the younger against the senior, slicing in two the knot that constricts the empire.
Spoiler alert: It works...