About the work
"The Golden Dragon" is a music-theatre work by Péter Eötvös after Roland Schimmelpfennig's play of the same name; Eötvös drew on the play's text for his libretto. The composer himself conducted the premiere on 29 June 2014 at Oper Frankfurt's Bockenheimer Depot, a joint commission by Ensemble Modern and Oper Frankfurt.
Plot
In the kitchen of a Chinese fast-food restaurant, a young undocumented cook suffers severe toothache; denied a visit to the dentist, his colleagues pull the tooth out with pliers and he bleeds to death. The tooth ends up in a flight attendant's soup and travels all the way to China, while the cook's body returns as a skeleton after two years at sea. Five singers narrate the story, continually switching role, gender, and age.
Cultural significance
The roughly 21 scenes unfold in real time, and the percussion section uses everyday objects such as a vegetable knife, bottles, and combs. Eötvös deliberately called the piece music theatre rather than opera, to foreground its narrative element.