Since his 1991 debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Hao Jiang Tian has appeared on the world’s greatest stages, more than 300 times at the Met alone. How he got there is a drama of bittersweet humor, mortal danger, heartbreaking tragedy, and inspiring triumph—more passionate and turbulent than even the grandest opera. In , Tian relives his coming of age in China during the chaotic Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and his dramatic journey from hard labor in a Beijing factory to international opera stardom.