Peking Opera Serial Shows on Mei Lanfang Grand Theater

Mei Lanfang Grand Theater, the first one designed especially for Peking Opera shows, witnessed a series of special Peking Opera shows performed by award-winning artists from the 6th National Youth Peking Opera Artists TV Competition. Those excellent youthful Peking Opera Artists have staged two classic highlights as well as one classic arias concert.

The highlights on February 7 included "Da Deng Dian" (Great Enthronement, the story ends up with a happy reunion), "Little Buffalo Cowboy" (a romantic story between a cowboy and a young girl who express love by dancing and singing), "Li Kui’s Visit to His Mother Tan" (a touching periscope from "Water Margin", one of the four Chinese Classical novels), and "Tiao Hua Che" (a heroic story of General Yue Fei’s ablest general Gao Chong).

The fighting scene "Zhang Fei Fights Ma Chao" (a periscope from"The Romance of Three Kingdoms")was performed on February 8. At the same night, "Xu Mu Xun Zi" (anotherperiscope from"The Romance of Three Kingdoms"), "Dang Ma" and "Xin’An Yi" (both of the two tell legendary stories about women disguising themselves as men) was put on the stage. And "Xin’An Yi" is rarely shown due to its complexity.

Traditional & Neo-adapted Huangmei Opera

The National Center for the Performing Arts greets Beijing citizens with Huangmei opera shows by Anhui Huangmei Opera Theatre.The three-day performance from February 7 to 9 wraped up both the traditional classic opera"The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal"and the neo-adapted "Thunderstorm".

"With pairs of birds singing on the tree/ so green rivers and mountains look great." Audiences in Beijing enjoy again the melodious selection of "The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal" . It stands as a monument in the development of Huangmei opera, with spreading influence both at home and abroad. Many of its arias are still sung today. Representing ordinary people's pursuit of freedom and pure love, the play has become a synonym for Huangmei opera.

The opera tells that the Jade Emperor of Heaven has seven daughters, the youngest of whom, the ravishingly beautiful Seventh Fairy Maiden, daringly flees down to the world in search of a love of her own choosing, and marries Dong Yong, an honest, kind-hearted serf, in defiance of her father. She makes the cruel landlord shorten Dong Yong's three years' indenture to 100 days, but just as they are leaving to set up their own home, the Jade Emperor has her snatched back to heaven, breaking up the happy couple. Pregnant and indignant, she writes a letter in her own blood to Dong, vowing, "When next spring comes and the flowers bloom, your son shall be yours beneath the scholar tree."

The moving plot, beautiful music and excellent singing made the play a household work. It was filmed in 1956, when there were few opera films, and given 150,000 domestic showings, also travelling to a dozen or so places abroad, so that the obscure wildflower became a masterpiece admired by people.

It also widens the way of presentation by the brand-new stage. The play is directed by Wang Xiangming, a renowned director of stage plays, written by Long Xueyi, an expert onCao Yuand the writer ofSichuanopera Jinzi, and composed by 80-year-old Mr. Shi Bailin, a master composer of Huangmei opera who wrote the music for "The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal". It also has a luxurious cast that six of the seven leading actors have won the Plum Blossom Award, the highest award of Chinese drama.

Thunderstorm is the first multi-act drama of Mr.Cao Yu, who selected the drama’s elements from the social life he used to be familiar with when he was young. By representing the historical and present feud between Zhou and Lu families that involves eight persons, it unfolds the complicated social life and conflicts during the approximate 30 year period from the 20th year of Emperor Guang Xu’s Reign (1894) to 1920.

Huangmei Opera

Huangmei Opera was formed in the 18th century, when Chinese local operas were flourishing. Originally it was a combination of local folk songs, dances and some widely spread ancient operas. Bordering onAnhuiProvince, Huangmei inHubeiis a county famous for its tea and tea-picking songs, from which Huangmei Opera got its original name, "tea-picking tunes" or "tea-picking opera". In the recent two centuries, the Huangmei Opera has grown from a folk art to an influential national drama. Since the founding of the newChina, the opera has developed rapidly and extended its influence across the country. It has become the highlight and the most typical drama ofAnhuiculture and art, and enjoys a great reputation across the world. Passion, natural and simple, is what makes Huangmei Opera an enduring drama appreciated by all.