There’s no doubting composer Huang Ruo and director Basil Twist’s ambition in Book of Mountains and Seas. Over 75 minutes, using six puppeteers, two percussionists and a choir of 12 – the excellent Ars Nova Copenhagen – they aim to create the world before our very eyes before nearly destroying it, twice. And all by manipulating some lanterns, a few swathes of silk and a handful of fragments reminiscent of flotsam. The action is measured, the sound world haunting, and the visuals, nimbly lit by Ayumu “Poe” Saegusa, are effective, but it does take a while to get going.
Ruo, who was born in China and lives in the US, writes assured, distinctive music, fusing east and west in a way that feels natural and authentic. Here, he deploys an array of tuned and untuned percussion instruments, some of them used in traditional Chinese orchestras, but most familiar to western ears. Gongs, finger cymbals, marimba and Tibetan singing bowls put in appearances, yet all are used sparingly. Vocally, too, there’s a certain austerity, whether in sober chant or rhythmic chatter. Melismatic melodies and ululating choruses lend cross-cultural spice to Ruo’s musical melting pot.
The work tells four tales drawn from Chinese myths transcribed in the fourth century BC. Judiciously chosen, their contemporary resonances range from the climate crisis to the boundless hubris of humankind. In the first, the death of the hairy titan Pan Gu creates sun and moon, mountains and rivers, and finally humans. The second tells of a drowned princess reborn as a vengeful bird. The third relates how 10 over-enthusiastic suns are whittled down to one to prevent them burning up the planet, and the fourth how the dim-witted giant Kua Fu tries and fails to capture the sun that remains.
The choir, robed like monks and with only their faces illuminated, tackle the intricate lines with confidence and a sure sense of pitch, singing in a combination of Mandarin and an unfathomable made-up language. The former appears now and again as surtitles, the latter does not. It is left to Twist and his puppeteers to tell us what is going on, which on the whole they do with craft and clarity. The imagery for tales one and two is a trifle plain: the story of the embittered bird and the ocean is told with little more than a crimson-fringed kite and a rippling white sheet.
The propulsive fourth story, however, where the deconstructed fragments come together to create the sun-hunting giant, is visually arresting. But it’s the stately progression of the 10 lanterns in the third tale, where graceful movement echoes music of piercing beauty, that lingers longest.
• At the Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 16 August
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