[1] The Consolations of Scholarship is based closely on the Yuan dramas The Orphan of Chao (by Chi Chun-hsiang) and the anonymous A Stratagem of Interlocking Rings.
The opera was first performed at the University of Durham on 5 May 1985 with Hirst and Lontano, and recorded by them at St Luke's Hampstead in 1989, issued on United 88040.
Chao Tun is accused of plotting against the Emperor by K'an and sent a false letter telling him to kill himself.
The son, who has been raised in an enlightened way by a remote hermit, goes to the capital city twenty years later as a young man to study philosophical classics.
A heavenly being, attempting to stop a plot against the Emperor by K'an casts a scroll at the General's feet, who, unable to understand the words, looks for someone to help read it, and meets the boy leaving the library.