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Iron Road (opera)
Iron Road is an opera in two acts written by the award-winning Canadian composer, Chan Ka Nin with libretto by Mark Brownell and Cantonese translations by George K. Wong. The opera was produced and premiered by Tapestry New Opera Works at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto in 2001 under the direction of Tom Diamond, with Zhu Ge Zeng portraying the lead role. The composition features a forty-two member cast, thirty-seven member orchestra, and recounts the story of a young Chinese woman in the late nineteenth century who disguises herself as a man and emigrates to Canada in search of her father.
== Historical Context ==
Chan’s opera takes place in late nineteenth century British Columbia at a point of great political friction. John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, took office in 1867, and as part of his political goals, endeavoured to unite the vast landscapes of Canada.〔(Iron Road Study Guide )〕 From Macdonald’s quest for unification evolved the development of a transcontinental railway system, later the Canadian Pacific Railway. This railway would construct a physical means of connection from Coast to Coast, allowing for greater political, social and economic regularity. This pursuit would prove difficult considering the country’s rugged landscape, varying political sentiments regarding unification, and the onslaught of foreign labourer immigration, among other factors.〔
Coinciding this political tension was social unrest in the Guangdong Province of Southern China. Since the time of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), inhabitants of the Canton region had been regarded as inferior among the elite, Northern Chinese culture. Subjugation to foreign rule had been long a determinant of the social atmosphere in the province. Around the time of Canada’s Confederation, the Cantonese suffered as a result the First and Second Opium Wars, which severely damaged the economic conditions of Guangdong, forcing formerly-employable workers into poverty and causing general strife. After the wars, emigration to ''Gum San'' (), or “Gold Mountain” (San Francisco) expanded as a result of the Gold Rush, and many men left illegally for Canada in search of employment in the land they believed would provide their families financial freedom. A large number arrived in Vancouver to work on building the country’s developing railway system.
Led by Andrew Onderdonk, the first Chinese labourers began to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway 14 May 1880. Canadians were generally suspicious of these immigrant labourers. Many argued citizens would lose labour opportunities from the Chinese, who they believed had no long-term investment in their lives in Canada as they had often come without their wives or children. However, Onderdonk supported this immigrant labour as he had needed approximately ten thousand labourers to complete the railway; at the time, only about thirty-five thousand inhabitants of British Columbia were of European descent. Macdonald was especially supportive of Chinese labour for he understood his goals for political unification would not be achieved without them, saying “()t is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can’t have the railway.” Many of these labourers would work in the Frasier River Valley, one of the most difficult areas of terrain to surmount. Conditions working the railway were poor and Chinese labourers made no more than $1 per day doing the most dangerous work. This is the environment in which Chan would set his opera.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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