Siddhartha Spirit Child

Siddhartha Spirit Child is an alt-opera about the real 1995 abduction by Chinese authorities of a five-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, the 11th Panchen Lama. It is also the mythical story of the life of Prince Siddhartha, who becomes Buddha. 

The piece moves across these two time worlds, present and past. The life of Siddhartha, 500 BCE, is told to the Chinese prison guard by the young captive Lama (Spirit Child) in the near present (2005) when the boy is 15. The time world goes back to 500 BCE at the start of Act One. 

As Spirit Child sings he becomes Prince Siddhartha, reliving the boy’s struggle to separate from his controlling King-Father and their worldly life.  

The heartless Chinese prison guard is slowly drawn into the two worlds – both of Spirit Child and Siddhartha.  By the end of the story as Siddhartha become Buddha the guard is empathically moved, and opens the prison door to set Spirit Child free. 

In real life the 11th Panchen Lama is still a missing person. In a recent report from the Chinese Government he is said to be living a normal, modern life in China, and he does not wish to be disturbed.

Siddhartha Spirit Child (1995 – 2001) was inspired by two films, one a BBC documentary, The Kingdom of the Lost Boy and the other, Bertolucci’s The Little Buddha. Both films came out in 1995, the year that Spirit Child – who is Gendun Choeki Nyima, the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama – was, at the time, a five-year-old monk. Shortly after HH the Dalai Lama announced he had recognised the boy-reincarnation, the child was abducted by the Chinese authorities.

The search to find the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama was detailed in the documentary before his abduction, though the film ends with the updated news that he had been abducted. The 11th Panchen Lama is part of the ‘Tulku’ tradition of wisdom-holders, passed down through a subtle and mysterious practice of intentional reincarnation, which is part of a Bodhichitta vow they take to return to help beings until all are enlightened.

The search involved Tibetan oracle divination, dream guidance, and practical tests to see if the boy could recognise objects belonging to the previous Panchen Lama, who had died on 28th January 1989. The reincarnation was born only three months later on 25th April 1989, and was found when he was five, by the spiritual search that was undertaken in Tibet in May 1995. The announcement was made public on May 14th and on May 17th, three days later, he was abducted.

The Prelude Overture tells the story of the monk, a few years into his (assumed) incarceration – longing for his people, his homeland and his tradition.

The main body of the opera then begins and was inspired by the film The Little Buddha, which is also about modern Tibetan Lama reincarnations, in the present day, but also goes back in time to tell the story of Buddha’s life, which starts with him as Prince Siddhartha in a golden palace, sheltered from the real world by his father. The opera takes on this double timeline as the foundational structure, moving from the present back in time to 500BCE to the life story of Siddhartha.

The film is constructed out of 69 short opera reels (average length about 2 minutes each), published on Instagram and Facebook in the Summer and Autumn of 2025. The audio is taken from one of the staged performances in 2001. The audio is not of the best quality. Still, with the help of a super-experienced professional music producer, the sound has been improved as much as possible, given the original files.

‘Storyboard’ Opera Reels created by JR, July – October 2025

This new two-hour film was published online October 7th 2025. It is made up of 69 short Instagram reels that were created and published individually over 3 months and then joined together to make one complete piece running at two hours seven minutes in total.

Each reel is between 1 and 2.5 minutes duration on average.

Prelude and Act 1 (49 mins)

Acts 2 and 3 (77 mins)

The main body of the opera was composed between 1998 and 2001 and included the addition of the Prelude as an Overture.

The opera was premiered at The Ocean Night Club in Hackney.

The live recording of the opera performance at Ocean Night Club, Hackney, in May 2001, has recently been developed into a series of Opera Reels, acting as a storyboarding montage of the whole narrative.

The front page of the Ocean Night Club programme is reproduced below with leading credits..

Credits for the 2001 performances

Commissioned by Lontano
Conductor Odaline de la Martinez
Music Jenni Roditi
Libretto Rebecca Swift (R.I.P)
The Ocean Night Club performance was directed by Martin Lloyd Evans

CAST
Sianed Jones (R.I.P) – Spirit Child/Siddhartha
Vivien Ellis – Yashodara (wife of Siddhartha) plus Tailor, Ascetic, Mara, Chorus
Katina Kangaris – Milk Maiden, Baker, Ascetic, Mara, Chorus
Philip Doghan – Guard (of the Sprit Child in the Prelude), King (Siddhartha’s father), Chorus
Michael Henry – Channa (Siddhartha’s friend), Ascentic, Mara, Chorus
Keel Watson (R.I.P) – Devdatta (Siddhartha’s cousin) Old Man, Ascetic, Flower Child, Mara, Chorus

Violins – Jaqueline Shave, Katherine Shave
Violas – Kate Musker, Phil Darcy
Cellos – James Potter, Miriam Lowbury
Double Bass – Corrado Canonici
Duduk – Dirk Campbell
Percussion – Martin Allen
Rehearsal pianist – Tony Grey

Christopher Shepherd – set designer
Dulcie Best – costume designer
Isabel Mortimer – choreographer
Francis Watson – associate director

Inside cover of programme…

Introduction to The Opera Reels

Siddhartha Spirit Child has sat patiently on my shelf waiting for me to archive it properly. Can’t believe it’s taken this long! As music producer Steve Parr said after spending a couple of days last year rebalancing the recording, “You need to log it on YouTube, or similar. It happened. It was part of the musical scene at that time – do it. It’s part of a legacy.” His words have pushed me on. I had intended (for years) to do some revisions, but it is more important to make it visible, as it is.

Some people in that performance are no longer with us. It is lovely to hear the voices of the late Sianed Jones and Keel Watson again. Also, to find myself smirking quietly at librettist Becky Swift‘s wry humour, “As a small boy, I noticed he was moody, tended to dwell. He might become unhappy, I could tell! He mooned around the castle, looking lost and sad..”. I was walking round the room yesterday, laughing at the phrases – “…tended to dwell.. he mooned around the castle… ” – it has that Becky summarising wit about it, with her mix of tongue-in-cheek and clever psychological signalling.

Feeling all three in this space at the moment.

As I listen to the performance recording (for the first time since it was staged), I am bewildered by much of what I hear. I wrote a deceptively challenging score. Simple enough on the surface, but it is over two hours, and we had only 3 weeks of rehearsal from scratch to stage. Some of the scoring and the vocal lines are lost in the rush of the performance – people are bravely marking the music, sticking to the libretto, but not finding the right notes. However, for all its pitfalls as a live recording, I am very glad to be making these vignette visualisations of the music, for purely archival purposes. I am loving the innocence of the opening sections and looking forward to discovering how it develops as the narrative unfolds. I turned the page of the score last night and thought “Oh yes.. this.. ” and was so happy to meet the material again. I was told a couple of years ago by a musical aficionado that my music was pan-tonal, he was referring the The Brimming Stone [2024]. There are many early indications of that in this score from 25 plus years ago.

The recording was done at Ocean Night Club in Hackney – it was a boomy space. Steve Parr has done his best to clean up the sound. Big thanks to him.