The Peony Pavilion was written by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), who died in the same year as Shakespeare. Some Chinese scholars consider him a literary parallel with the Bard.

The play has an opulence typical of the literary style of the era, but it transcends many cliches found in Chinese romance. The storyline is Freudian to the ninth and features twists that remind one of such Hollywood films as Sleepless in Seattle, where the lovers never meet before the finale, and Ghost, where the couple crosses the great divide for intimacy.

Du Liniang is a 16-year-old daughter of a rich family. One day she saunters into a garden and, while dozing off, has an erotic dream in which she makes love with a handsome young man she has never met in real life. To retain her youthful beauty, she draws a self-portrait, and then dies of longing.

Liu Mengmei, the man in her dream, lives thousands of miles away. On his way to the capital for an imperial exam, he passes Du's hometown and stumbles upon the portrait. Falling in love with the girl in it, he summons her spirit for a nightly rendezvous. Eventually, he gets to the truth and resurrects her. They tie the knot in real life and live happily ever after.

Performance history

The Imperial Granary Edition of The Peony Pavilion is a two-hour affair designed for people who know nothing about Kunqu or this particular opera. It retains the essential story line as well as the most celebrated scenes and arias.

According to Wang Shiyu, this opera is rarely presented in its entirety. Even the 20-hour, 6-night, 55-act version, performed in New York in 1999, which is claimed by Wikipedia as "perhaps the first full length staging in 300 years" is "not really complete". An authentically complete version would take "10 days and 10 nights". Sometimes, a portion of an act contains an independent show, somewhat like sampling but on a mammoth scale.

Like many of China's literary classics, this work is often rendered into separate shows of normal length. In the 1980s, most versions would end with the female lead's death, essentially the half-way point, because her resurrection was deemed "superstitious".

Mei Lanfang, the Peking Opera legend, essayed the female leading role when he came out of self-imposed hiatus during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Since Kunqu arias lie lower in the vocal register, he used The Peony Pavilion as a warm-up for resuming his career, inadvertently creating a landmark performance when paired with Kunqu master Yu Zhenfei.

The current champion of Kunqu is Taiwanese author Kenneth Pai (Bai Xianyong), who produced a 3-night "Young Lovers version", and took it on tour all across China and even to the US, mostly on campuses.

In 1998, Tan Dun adapted the play into a modern opera, directed by Peter Sellers and Chen Shizheng, who did the 20-hour version. It played abroad, winning critical acclaim but antagonizing purists.

There are a couple of Hong Kong and Taiwan feature films that use The Peony Pavilion as the title. Music and other elements are highlighted, but otherwise none constitute a film adaptation of the original opera.

Wang Shiyu, who has participated in four or five versions in his career, theorizes that an ideal form of presentation might be the television series: consecutive episodes that can stand alone in plot, but running together would recreate the enormity and the dramatic arc of the original.

The new generation

In the Imperial Granary edition, 24-year-old Zeng Jie and 19-year-old Hu Zhexing impersonate the immortal lovers.

This is quite unusual. Like stage versions of Romeo and Juliet, an opera classic like The Peony Pavilion generally stars established singers who are at least into their 30s. But producers and directors of this version wanted their stars to not only have the singing and acting chops, but also look the part. (The female protagonist is supposed to be 16 years old.)

Both Zeng and Hu have been through rigorous training. But close proximity with the audience dictates that they go beyond the traditional stylized movements and inject their roles with television-style realism. There must be more outpouring of real emotions because you cannot rely on exaggerated gestures to convey your feelings, they revealed. The audience can sense your passion or sorrow. Such a performance demands more from them and is therefore also more exhausting.

"You have to move yourself before you can move the audience," says Zeng, who admits that it took a person of his generation years to truly love this art form and get the roles under his skin. "You can do this role all your life and still learn new things."

Hu exudes the playfulness of a typical teenager. "One has to be a little narcissistic to be a performing artist," she says. Even though what her character does in the opera is considered bold for her time, she still appears demure. "Even a slight brush with a stranger would set her heart palpitating. Nowadays we would just laugh it off. So, as soon as I get into the dressing room, I'd get into my character's mood."

Zeng has the suave temperament of a classical scholar-artist. He broadens into other styles of Chinese opera and does not mind picking up a few pop tunes on the side. Of all artistic influences he cites Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats. "Just like our Kunqu act, it is a good balance of abstract and realistic, and it has moments of dramatic power and great singing."

Now it is his and his colleagues' turn to overwhelm their audience with a heart-rending love story.

(China Daily August 2, 2007)