Renowned writer and scholar Pai Hsien-yung brings his two new Kunqu Opera productions, The White Silk Robe and The Story of Golden Lotus, as highlights to the Classic Chinese Operas Series festival in Shanghai.[Photo provided to China Daily]
Chinese opera series features two Kunqu works updated for contemporary audiences, Zhang Kun reports from Shanghai.
Pai Hsien-yung, a renowned writer and scholar from Taiwan will be presenting two new Kunqu opera productions, The White Silk Robe and The Story of Golden Lotus in Shanghai. According to Pai, while The White Silk Robe is "a grave tragedy of humanity", The Story of Golden Lotus is about a beautiful woman's journey through deception and despair.
The 81-year-old is the producer for both plays which completed a successful tour of Taiwan in January.
The two plays, performed by the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre from Jiangsu province, will be staged at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on April 4 and 6, respectively.
These plays are part of the Classic Chinese Operas Series festival at SHOAC.
The showcasing of traditional Chinese operas at SHOAC has taken place annually, since it was founded in 2008.
The Story of Golden Lotus.[Photo provided to China Daily]
According to Lei Wen, the general manager of SHOAC, the festival is the only one of its kind in China featuring classical Chinese operas.
This year, the festival running from March 11 to April 20 is showcasing 13 productions at SHOAC, including Kunqu, Peking operas, Shanghai's local Huju opera and a contemporary percussion music theater show of Mulan.
Pai's productions of the two traditional Kunqu operas are among the most anticipated of the series this year. But the renowned writer and scholar from Taiwan is best known for Taipei People, a representative work of Chinese modernism.
Over the past 15 years, Pai has gone to great lengths to promote Kunqu Opera by designing a new aesthetic that can take the 600-year-old art form to theater stages in the 21st century and attract young audiences.
In 2004, he created his first Kunqu piece Peony Pavilion, which featured young artists from the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre. And since then he has done The Jade Hairpin in 2009 before The White Silk Robe in 2016 and The Story of Golden Lotus in 2018.
Pai compares the story of The White Silk Robe to ancient Greek tragedies and plays by William Shakespeare.
In the story, a young judge needs to make a difficult choice when he realizes that the man he has known as his father for the past 18 years is actually a villain who once attempted to murder his birth father and forced his mother into a nunnery.
Renowned writer and scholar Pai Hsien-yung.[Photo provided to China Daily]
Traditionally viewed as a simple story of revenge and justice, The White Silk Robe was given a new interpretation for contemporary audiences, especially the young, Pai says.
In the production, the hero "is torn between his emotions and reason, good and evil" when he finds out about the dark past of the man he once respected and loved as his father. But even when faced with the evidence of the grim crime he committed, it is no easy decision for the judge to have him executed, says Yu Jiulin, a seasoned Kunqu performer and the deputy director of the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre.
In order to play the role, Yu went under the tutelage of Yue Meiti, a 78-year-old female Kunqu singer from the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Theatre who helped him to find more depth in his expressions.
The lessons with Yue "completely transformed me", says Yu who was primarily a jinsheng actor who performed the roles of young men in romantic stories.
As for The Story of the Golden Lotus, it is partly based on the Chinese classic novel Water Margin by Shi Nai'an (1296-1372).
In this story, Pan Jinlian is a sultry young woman who is forced to marry a dwarf.
Then, unhappy with her disabled and timid husband, she has an extramarital affair and eventually murders him when he discovers her transgression.
The White Silk Robe.[Photo provided to China Daily]
For hundreds of years, Pan's Chinese name was the equivalent of a "morally-depraved and murderous woman", but Wang Yueyang, the playwright of this new Kunqu play, believes that "although her sins are beyond forgiveness, her plight must be viewed sympathetically".
Speaking about how he sees her, he says: "Today, we view her fate with tolerance and look at things from her point of view - she is just an unfortunate woman in pursuit of love."
Liang Guyin of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Theatre is best known for her portrayal of Pan. The 77-year-old artist was first trained for this role when she was just 14.
Recalling how she was picked for the part, she says: "Jiao Huang, a renowned theater artist, visited our school one day and watched us rehearsing. And he commented that 'this girl is a natural-born Pan Jinlian'.
"I was offended at that time. But many years later I realized that it was indeed high praise."
Liang will present her production of The Story of Golden Lotus which she describes as one of the most important plays in the repertoire of the Liang school of Kunqu on March 31.
Liang's disciple Lyu Jia will take the lead role in the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre production.
Speaking of her role, Lyu says: "As a new generation of Liang school artists, it is my mission to keep the play alive and popular."
