The Fourth China Peking Opera Festival opened in Shanghai on Wednesday with a gala performance telling the brief history of Peking Opera, the popular repertoires and well-known artists.

Directed by Chen Xinyi, the opening show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre featured some 800 performers from nationwide ensembles.

Thirty-two Peking Opera companies, including one from Taiwan, will present 55 shows in the two-week festival. Most are new pieces.

Alongside the full-length plays, 25 shows will feature popular fighting scene excerpts from classical works.

Gong Xiaoxiong, a member of the festival's organizing committee, said one of the highlights of the festival was the martial arts competition, which will involve more than 900 martial arts actors from 16 Peking Opera troupes across the country.

Traditionally, martial arts performances are an integral part of Peking Opera, featuring both male and female roles performing incredible stunts as glamorous handsome generals or skillful kung fu masters.

But in recent years, new Peking Opera dramas, created by modern drama playwrights, focus more on storytelling.

Martial arts performers appear more in shows for tourists. Their repertoire is often routine. It is hard for them to learn a new repertoire. Even today's top martial arts actor Xi Zhonglu has to go to some small troupes in southern China to perform.

"How can you expect to draw audiences when you don't practice hard and possess all the difficult skills?" said Xi, 46, grandson of Xi Xiaobo (1910-77), one of the four most famous martial artists.

As a result, Peking Opera schools in the country have difficulties recruiting martial arts students, who must practice hard for years and endure physical injuries to eventually simply get overthrown.

The first competition in Shanghai drew some 70 contending shows, 25 of which have been chosen to compete in the final.

In the preliminary rounds of the Shanghai region, Xi Zhonglu, Jin Xiquan and Yan Qinggu have outshone six other actors to become representatives of Shanghai for the finals.

Ma Bomin, artistic director of the Shanghai Culture and Broadcast Administration and initiator of the martial arts competition in the festival, hopes that the competition will become a permanent part of the tri-annual Peking Opera festival.

"This competition will inspire the country's martial arts performers," said Ma.

Many critics believe that the following four original productions are the hottest candidates for the golden award of the festival: the symphonic poem Mei Lanfang depicting the late master Mei, The Disinterested Governor Yu Chenglong (Lianli Yu Chenglong), about a real official in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Bashan Scholar (Bashan Xiucai), a production from Taiwan, and Crazy Calligrapher Mi Fu from Xiangyang (Xiangyang Midian), focusing on the ancient calligrapher Mi Fu (1051-1107).

In addition, there will be four shows staged by children. To bring in more audiences as well as already loyal fans, some special performances will be given at campuses, parks or squares.

The festival will also involve workshops and seminars on how to preserve and develop Peking Opera among professional performers, amateurs and fans.

During the festival, special memorial events will be held to mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of Peking Opera masters Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) and Zhou Xinfang (1895-1975).

The Ministry of Culture started the China Peking Opera Festival in 1995 and holds it every three years. It helps to preserve the art form, nurture audiences and show off what the ensembles have gained in producing plays and training young performers.

(China Daily December 3, 2004)