Willem Jeths (1959), one of the Netherlands' most important composers following his studies with Hans Kox and Tristan Keuris, had been contemplating an opera since the 1990s. After Jeths' meeting with Friso Haverkamp - himself known for his collaboration with Guus Janssen (Hiero, Noach) and Martijn Padding (Tattooed Tongues) - they soon agreed upon a subject. Jeths, already in partial collaboration with Haverkamp, composed several works as preparatory studies for the opera. In Yellow Darkness for clarinet and orchestra (2004) as well as in the orchestral works Seanchai (2004) and Ombre Cinesi (2005) he researched the tension and elasticity of the basic components of an operatic musical language. Death also reaches everywhere: in Jeths' Throb (1995-2003) composed in memory of his mother, the death chord from Mahler's Symphony nr. 10 makes its appearance; this famous, stomach-turning dissonant scream appears in a number of Jeths' works as an embodiment of the abyss - and in Hôtel de Pékin it becomes a symbol of Qin's dehumanised rigidity.

The Muziekkwartier in Enschede in the Netherlands opened with the premiere of Hôtel de Pékin – Dreams for a dragon queen, Willem Jeths' first opera, on 22 November 2008. The opera was written in close collaboration with librettist Friso Haverkamp and describes the final hours and death of Cixi, the so-called monster and last Empress of the Chinese empire. Cixi (1835-1908) began her life as a woman of the people; she nevertheless rose swiftly from Imperial concubine to regent, as which she ruled the empire without mercy from 1861 until her death in 1908.