A group of performers are staging a new adaptation of an old tragedy in the city of Anqing as part of the Huangmei Opera Art Festival. It's called Southeast Flies the Peacocks and it's drawing a big audience.

The new piece is adapted from a 2,000-year-old narrative poem set in Anqing during the Eastern Han Dynasty. It tells that tale of a happy couple who are forced apart by a mother-in-law and then commit suicide to defend their love. It's an old story but it has a contemporary take. Performers say that they updated the classic by incorporating modern language and musical elements.

The origins of Huangmei Opera can be traced back to 18th century tea-picking ballads which sprang from a county named Huangmei in central China's Hubei Province. Those songs were brought to Anqing by migrant farmers from Huangmei in the early 19th century, when their hometown was often blighted by drought and flood. Anqing proved to be fertile ground for the art.

Huangmei Opera's popularity first peaked in the early 1950s when two traditional pieces, A Marriage to the Fairy and the Emperor's Female Son-in-law were turned into films. The cinematic adaptations took the whole country by storm. Lead actress Yan Fengying gained national fame and proved to be the most important figure in Huangmei Opera. Her co-star, Wang Shaofang, was once a Peking Opera performer and lent a refined air to the Huangmei style.

Over the decades, modern technology has introduced the art form to a new audience by putting many Huangmei Opera pieces on both the big and small screens. But for a long time, none of them could surpass the original two classics.

In 1999, Han Zaifen, the leading Huangmei Opera artist of the younger generation, successfully challenged the classic pieces with a new play named Huizhou Women. It explores the life of a maid in Huizhou who waits for more than 30 years to meet her husband. Unfortunately, the husband turns up with another wife. The plot is simple but the greater stress on dancing and acting signals a new age in the art form. Critics say it sets an example for modern productions.

Just one month ago, the Anhui Huangmei Opera Company staged a new piece named The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. It's contemporary music and conversation immediately made it controversial. It's a brave attempt to tell an ancient love story in a new way, but the production also proves it's still too early to announce a ready solution to the quarrel between tradition and modernity.

(CCTV.com November 5, 2003)