A Yueju Opera artist performs in a file photo. A Yueju Opera TV series of the classic love story "The Peony Pavilion" is set to hit the small screen next year. [File Photo: woaidong.com]

A Yueju Opera TV series of the classic love story "The Peony Pavilion" - a beyond-the-grave romance - will be aired next year on China Central Television (CCTV) and the Opera Channel.

"The Peony Pavilion", a masterpiece by famed playwright Tang Xianzu of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), has traditionally been performed as a Kunqu Opera. Now it will become a TV series in gentle, feminine Yueju Opera, in which women traditionally play the roles of young scholars and noblemen.

The TV series stars veteran Yueju Opera artists Wang Jun'an and Jin Jing; Kunqu Opera masters Yue Meidi and Hua Wenyi are the art directors.

Shooting is underway in Qiandeng Town, Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. The original tale has 55 episodes and is known for detailed portrayal of 160 characters.

This version, fortunately, will be boiled down to four episodes of 45 minutes each, so that young audiences don't get bored. It will be aired in the second half of next year.

The production is another attempt to promote traditional Chinese operas on television and in cinema, says Wei Xiangdong, producer of the series for China Central Television.

Last year, Wei produced a three-and-a-half-hour Yueju Opera film of the classic "A Dream of Red Mansions". The production was praised by cinemagoers.

"Kunqu Opera exerted considerable influence on the development of Yueju Opera," says Wei. "There are a couple of links between the two opera genres. We believe that Yueju Opera with its tender and feminine feelings is well suited to convey the romantic soul of Tang's masterpiece."

The opera TV drama centers on the complicated love story between maiden Du Liniang and scholar Liu Mengmei. It's partly about young people's aspirations for free choice in love and exposes the ills of feudal ethics. There's a ghost lover, a resurrection and lots of complications. Love triumphs.

It begins when Du falls asleep in her family's peony pavilion and sees scholar Liu in a dream - he doesn't know it then. She pines away and dies for her love. He still doesn't know it. By chance, however, he stays at her family home on the way to take the national scholars' exam. At last, he falls in love with her portrait at her grave.

He too is besotted, but she appears to him in a dream and they are reunited. At her bidding, her grave is opened, and there she is, radiant and resurrected.

The course of true love, however, never runs smooth, but it all ends happily.

The TV series is the first collaboration on a major classic between two distinct performance schools, the Yin School and the Qi School of Yueju Opera.

Wang, a famous apprentice of Yin Guifang, who founded the subtle Yin School, is renowned for playing young, cultivated scholars in love with the gifted maidens. She will play the male role of Liu.

The heroine Du is played by Jin, whose mentor is Qi Yaxian. Jin is known for expressing delicate emotional changes in her melancholy singing - plots usually deal with tragedies for female characters.

"Tang's work is characterized by multi-faceted charm," says Hua Wenyi, the art director. "It provides a panorama of social life in the Ming dynasty. Wang and Jin's acting should perfectly match the protagonists' delicate emotional changes and internal conflicts."

Efforts have long been underway to attract young people to traditional arts that lack the fast pace and glitz of pop. Making films, producing by-products and hosting salons are some approaches to popularizing the classics.

The new pamphlet "Play: Shanghai" is the city's first free at-the-door introduction to all operas at Shanghai Grand Theater, Shanghai Oriental Art Center and Shanghai Concert Hall. Performers appear at regular "Play Class" salons to help young people appreciate traditional art forms.

(Shanghai Daily December 25, 2008)