Here is the french version of the press release :

Montréal, le vendredi 1er août 2008 – La firme chinoise qui a raflé le jupiter d’or en 1992 revient ce samedi à L’International des Feux Loto-Québec présenté par TELUS et donnera, par le fait même, le coup d’envoi à la « Semaine de la Chine à La Ronde », une semaine d’activités qui culminera les 9 et 10 août par la participation de pas moins de 800 personnes issues de la communauté chinoise de Montréal. En organisant cet événement, La Ronde souhaite souligner l’ouverture imminente des Jeux olympiques de Pékin.

Pour gagner le cœur des Montréalais, Sunny International présente « À la vie, à l’amour », la transposition pyromusicale d’une légende chinoise qui ressemble à plusieurs égards à l’occidentale Roméo et Juliette. L’histoire de Ying Tai, une jeune femme qui tomba amoureuse de Shan Bo tout en étant promise à un autre homme par ses parents, sera transposée en cinq actes et 13 musiques. La fin tragique, où les deux amoureux meurent et se transforment en papillons pour s’envoler ensemble doit être comprise, tel que le précise le concepteur Ching Chung Shih, comme un exemple de persévérance, de lutte et d’espoir.

Le concepteur sait de quoi il parle dans ce dernier domaine : il a été ébranlé par le terrible séisme qui a pris plus de 70 000 vies en mai, dans la province du Sichuan. « À la vie, à l’amour, le spectacle sur lequel je travaillais déjà depuis quelques mois, a alors pris une autre dimension », raconte-t-il.

La musique qui servira de trame sonore aux feux sera aussi variée qu’empreinte d’émotion. On y entendra Mozart, Vivaldi et des airs traditionnels chinois, de même que certains tirés d’Harry Potter. Une narration en français ponctuera le tout. « Si un jour tu devais t’en aller, mon destin changerait tout à coup du tout au tout », y entendra-t-on.

Les internautes trouveront quelques extraits vidéo d’entrevue sur le site Internet www.internationaldesfeuxlotoquebec.com. Au même endroit se trouve aussi le nom des treize titres qui se feront entendre dans les gradins

Thanks Mylène - here's the soundtrack:

Soundtrack
Title
Interpret

Ikhtitaf Fi Assaraya
Mozart

Liang Zhu (Butterfly lovers)
He Zhanhao et Chen Gang

Potter Waltz
Patrick Doyle

Freedom
12 Girls Band

Falls deeply in love
Classique chinois

Flight of the Bumble Bee
Rimsky Korsakov

Presto from summer
Vivaldi

Exodus
Ernest Gold (tiré du film)

La Traviata : Libiamo ne’ lieti calici
Pavarotti

Liang Zhu (Butterfly lovers)
He Zhanhao et Chen Gang

Intermezzo
Mascagni

Improvisation
Percussions chinoises

Allegro maestoso
Franz Listz

C'est intriguant. Le thème et la bande sonore semblent très intéressants. Espérons seulement que la narration ne brisera pas le rythme d'ensemble du spectacle.

There's some cross-fertilization between Sunny and the American team Pyro Spectaculars by Souza (winner of the Bronze Jupiter in 2007). Whereas Sunny supplied some materials to Pyro Spectaculars last year (for instance, the dices on the music of Viva Las Vegas, made of 3D cube shells), Jim Souza's son, Paul, is embedded in the Chinese crew this year.

Fred

This a completely different approach compared to the rest of our competitors, and the framework sort of reminds me of what France did last year with their theme. I also echo what Fred said and hope that narration, if any, doesn't interfere too much with the general fluidity of the display.

Heh, and all this time I thought they would do something dedicated to 888, especially seeing that they're the last entrant to compete, and on August 2nd to boot. This attempt sounds intriguing, though.

Trav.

Trav - there will be narration. How much? After reading over the synopsis of the Butterfly Lovers legend I would think a fair bit of narration would be needed to properly tell the story. Then again, Sunny might tend more towards "expressing" the legend in that they convey the emotions of the story without fully involving the audience with the plot.

In either case, I would say that we shouldn't have to worry as Sunny has earned our collective trust.

Also interesting to note that, from the soundtrack, the music "Liang Zhu (Butterfly lovers)" which is featured twice, is a near 30 minute musical piece for violin and chamber orchestra that was written specifically for the Butterfly Lovers legend.

Tyler

Thanks for your interpretations, TRae. Knowing Sunny, I think they'll be able to pull it off significantly without obstructing the display with large periods of narration, while of course using it effectively to introduce the appropriate emotions and transitional points in a convincing manner when necessary - this is critical when working with a theme such as this.

Also, if team China does a splendid job, as I'm sure they will (seeing particularly that one of the designers from their 2004 performance is involved in this display), they will subsequently hold the natural advantage of being the final competitor, which can have quite an influence on the final results - this is possibly in part how Germany took home the silver Jupiter last year, especially seeing that they had such a beautiful display to support that.

Trav.

Did anyone hear anymore news regarding some statistics of China's setup?

Trav.

Did anyone hear anymore news regarding some statistics of China's setup?

I did hear rumours that there would be something like 400 cakes ... but I didn't get chance to visit the ramps this time

Paul.

I saw plenty of pieces on ramp 3. There were not many between ramp 1 and 3, but there are some big tubes on ramp 1. I don't think I saw any special structures, unfortunately.

Some of the tubes on the third ramp were being covered with a sheet of aluminum or something like that, hehe.