Opera adaptation hits high note at London premiere

"Previously, I'd been a translator and I was asked by my friend Adam Williams, Hong Ying's husband, if I could help translate her books as the translator they had wasn't very good, which meant the book's illustrator, Cherry Denman, was drawing the wrong pictures because she was given the wrong details," he says.

As he translated the third book, Smith saw its obvious musical potential.

"It had many good operatic themes. I began working on The Stone God at the end of 2019. Translating it from Chinese to English became one of my big lockdown projects, and then into the language of music," he explains.

"I hope I've created something that conjures up the image of being in China. It's set in China and I think it will be very popular if it is staged there. It has a Chinese flavor, but underneath it's just a great story that I think anyone can enjoy."

Arcadian Opera's Musical Director Justin Lavender conducted the orchestra for the performance. Like Smith, he has a long relationship with China that includes learning the language, which he says was "one of the hardest things I've ever done".

"I performed the role of Lieutenant Pinkerton in Giacomo Puccini's Madam Butterfly a lot," he says. "It was not uncommon to be the only Westerner in the company, so I realized I needed to learn basic Chinese. When I came home, I went to evening classes and learned it up to the A Level (pre-university) standard."