Features of the interpretation of the Passion genre in Tan Dun’s "Buddha Passion"

This article discusses the Tan Dun’s "Buddha Passion" through the prism of genre transformation. The purpose of the work is to identify the specifics of the interpretation of Passion in the composer's composition, through the analysis of the libretto, the features of drama and composition, as well as the presence of genre alloys. The composer, following the tradition of Passion, which allows for a free interpretation of primary sources, expands its textual and conceptual framework. Along with the libretto of the genre archetype, where the primary source is the text of the Gospel, in Buddha Passion the composer combines sutras, jatakas, mantras from the Indian and Chinese Buddhist canons, the Taoist treatise "Tao Te Ching", Chinese poetry by Wang Wei. Despite the genre basis of Passion, Tan Dun includes elements of Western European opera, Peking opera, and Buddhist religious chants, which significantly expands the boundaries of the genre. The methodology includes comparative historical, intertextual, and musical-dramatic analysis, which allows us to consider the work under study in the context of a synthesis of the Western European tradition of the Passion genre and Eastern culture. The novelty of the research lies in a comprehensive analysis of the libretto of the work, including consideration of the range of primary sources, their interpretation and the composer's methods of working with the text, as well as in identifying elements of other genres in the Buddha Passion, contributing to the emergence of an original genre fusion in the composition. The results of the work demonstrate that Buddha Passion is a quasi-passion in which the genre archetype is reinterpreted by replacing the traditional gospel plot with Buddhist parables, sutras and mantras, and its musical and dramatic features, along with reliance on archetypal features, combine elements of Western European opera, Buddhist ritual and Peking opera. Thus, in the work under study, Tan Dun presents an original interpretation of the European genre, combining the cultural traditions of the East and the West.