Weir A Night at the Chinese Opera Royal Academy of Music, March 2006 Director Jo Davies Lighting Chris Davey

Reviews 

Jo Davies’ production, with its gauze screens, complements the scenario’s multi-layering ... Really a must-see music-theatrical event. (The Stage)

... the cheerful mix of period styles in Yannis Thavoris's designs catch exactly the right note. (Guardian)

... a sharp-edged production by Jo Davies and stylish designs by Yannis Thavoris... (Observer)

To keep everything on track clear direction was needed, and provided by Jo Davies, and Yannis Thavoris’s designs were also spot on. The opening sequence really does set the scene, as the old fashioned night watchman fixedly addresses his words and attention towards the audience whilst a procession of lights weave their way forward on the backdrop – and then he turns around at the very moment that the lights translate into a convoy of remote controlled tanks progressing inexorably across the front of the stage. (Musical Pointers)

The elegantly symbolic design is full of imaginative touches. Flashlights behind a gauze screen shift to represent different constellations in the night sky; the oppressed workers’ helmet lamps later echo this. The invasion of the military is shown by a procession of red toy-tanks across the stage, a sight at once comic and disturbing. A back-cloth showing a stylised tree suddenly splits to reveal the sky at the ecstatic moment in Weir’s score when Chao Lin arrives at the top of White Raven Mountain, his voice echoed by French horns. (ClassicalSource.com)

Within Yannis Thavoris’s sparse yet evocative sets - translucent screens and calligraphic squiggles - the show is stunningly delivered... (Times)