Before dawn on a hot day in mid-July, Sylvia Chang and members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HKPhil) ventured into the woods, off the beaten path at The Peak. They were there to catch the short-lived, magical sight when the first ray of sunlight pierces through the bushes and trees, creating the illusion of a misty, shimmering fairyland. Unfazed by the mosquitoes, the steamy heat and the bumpy track, the 70-year-old actress, whose work spans Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China, looked at ease in her surroundings, like an ethereal fairy queen in her woodland.
This was a photo shoot to promote her latest stage production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Sylvia Chang, which comes to Hong Kong this month for the first time, after it premiered in Taiwan seven years ago and travelled to Shanghai in April this year. Adapted from Shakespeare’s comedy about love, marriage, jealousy and magic, Chang’s production is an ambitious undertaking that blends German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s 1826 composition, based on the play, with Chang’s reciting of the characters’ lines in Mandarin.
When HKPhil’s resident conductor Lio Kuokman was, to collaborate. “[Chang’s piece] is a fantastic programme that shows the full version of Mendelssohn’s music. Some parts of the composer’s are very popular, and [surprisingly to some], the that we so often hear at weddings” is part of it, says Lio. “But no one really performs the theatrical work in full.”
