"First there’s often protest by Asian American communities about what they believe are stereotyped depictions; by resetting the opera in Edwardian England, we don’t have to worry about that. Second, because the opera was originally set in Japan, you had all these white actors playing Japanese characters – yellowface actors – and by setting it in Edwardian England we now have white actors playing white characters. To me, that solves the two key concerns that might come up."