Seattle Opera has announced the world premiere of The Wedding Banquet, a comic opera inspired by the 1993 Ang Lee film of the same name and the 2025 remake from Andrew Ahn (which starred Bowen Yang and Kelly Marie Tran). The opera is composed by Huang Ruo, with a libretto by screenwriter James Schamus, who co-wrote both the original film and the remake. The new work, a co-commission with the Metropolitan Opera, will premiere in Seattle in January 2027, before coming to the Met.
Set in Seattle, The Wedding Banquet takes is plot mostly from the 2025 film: Mei and Izzy, a lesbian couple struggling to conceive via IVF, and Chris and Min a gay couple whose relationship is straining. When Min's family pressures him to return to Korea as his student visa is about to expire, he proposes a marriage of convenience with Mei.
Said Ruo in a statement: “When I first saw Ang Lee’s classic film many years ago, I knew immediately it would make a great opera. The opera tells a heartfelt, human story that celebrates friendship and found family, queer love, and cultural identity. Given what these films have meant to me, I am thrilled now to be joining James Schamus and a new generation of artists reimagining this classic work for today through an operatic lens.”
Ruo has composed eight operas to date, including three with Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang: M. Butterfly, An American Soldier, and The Monkey King, which will have its world premiere via San Francisco Opera this year. The Wedding Banquet will be the first opera written by an Asian American composer presented on Seattle Opera’s mainstage. It will also be Ruo's Seattle Opera and Metropolitan Opera debut.
This will be Schamus' first time writing an opera, as he said in a statement: Having worked on both Ang Lee’s original film and Andrew Ahn’s recent re-imagining, I am excited about the surprising new discoveries we’ve made by adapting this story to the opera stage. Opera allows you to explore the inner lives of your characters in ways that cinema does not, so you have more access to their full range of emotional expression. The characters get to work out how they’re feeling in real time.”
Seattle Opera Artistic Director James Robinson will direct the world premiere, which will feature choreography by Sunny Min-Sook Hit, sets by Allen Moyer, costumes by Han Feng, lighting by Donald Holder, and projections by Greg Emetaz.
“The Wedding Banquet is a rarity in the opera landscape: a new American comedy in an industry dominated by tragedy,” said Robinson in a statement. "But it also has plenty of heart. Audiences new to this story will find a touching tale of family, friendship, and acceptance, and those who love these films will appreciate the new dimension opera brings to the story. I am thrilled to collaborate with Huang Ruo and James Schamus to bring this new opera to the Seattle Opera stage.”
For more information, visit SeattleOpera.org.
