‘Superman’ Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti’s love for wife’s spring rolls – Chinese opera singer Tian Haojiang sprinkles vignettes of life onstage and off in book of essays

Luciano Pavarotti loved Tian’s wife’s spring rolls, and gave him an affectionate nickname. As for Placido Domingo, the Chinese singer calls him ‘Superman’

In a set of Chinese-language essays – he won’t translate them to spare his friends’ blushes – bass baritone Tian depicts life on the professional opera circuit

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Opera singer Tian Haojiang in Hong Kong for the launch of a set of essays about his career and the friends he has made, from Luciano Pavarotti to Placido Domingo. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 4:15am, 12 Oct 2022

After bass-baritone singer Tian Haojiang finished his performance in September’s production of Rusalka at the Pittsburgh Opera – in which he played the titular heroine’s father – he immediately flew to Hong Kong.

The US-based singer had two important appointments in the city where his wife, Martha Liao, grew up.

The first was the October 8 premiere of Somnium, a multimedia opera for which his sister-in-law Diana Liao wrote the libretto. The other was the launch three days later of his new book of essays written in traditional Chinese, called Turandot at the Arena.

The book is engaging, full of affectionate and intimate portraits of fellow musicians and friends important to Tian’s career. It offers a glimpse into the rarefied world of the international professional opera circuit, and is sprinkled with revelations about its unforgiving, pressure-cooker environment.

Tian Haojiang taking centre stage as a Jesuit priest, in one of his many operatic performances. Photo: SCMP

The 68-year-old made his improbable debut at New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Opera in 1991 – a mere eight years after arriving in the United States on a scholarship to the University of Denver with US$35 in his pocket, and knowing only a few words of English.