In Peking Opera female roles used to be played by actors. Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) was one of the most renowned Peking Opera actors who had performed female roles.

Now Wu Rujun, 40, is one of the very few actors perpetuating Mei's legacy.

Tomorrow evening Wu's play Wu Zetian -- which premiered in January at Beijing's Chang'an Theatre -- returns to the venue. He performs the title role, Wu Zetian (AD 624-705), the only empress in China's history to establish her own reign.

Catching human nature

In Wu Rujun's interpretation, the combination of a cruel power struggle in the court and growing ambition changed the destiny of the initially kind and intelligent girl.

Wu admits it's a challenging role. For some 1,300 years people have been sharply divided, with some admiring Wu Zetian for her many achievements and others regarding her as a ruthless, merciless schemer and autocrat.

"I just try to portray a resourceful and tough woman who did what she had to do. Her actions were no different from those of emperors," Wu said.

Since the play's premiere in January, Wu has been improving the music and choreography. He highly recommends scene five, which features impressive choreography, fighting and singing.

In that scene Wu Zetian decides to kill her newborn daughter to accuse her rival Empress Wang.

"I portray her happiness in giving birth to a daughter, fury towards her enemy Empress Wang, depression brought by court officials against her and grief for the killing of her own baby to save her political life," said Wu.

Gifted from his Peking Opera actress mother and jinghu fiddle player father, Wu grew up listening to Peking Opera albums.

At the age of nine he began to learn jinghu with his father and later entered the Academy of Chinese Traditional Opera in Beijing to receive systematic training on the instrument.

Jinghu, a two-stringed fiddle, is the backbone of the accompaniment orchestra for Peking Opera, and the jinghu player could be considered the most important supporting role to the singer.

The jinghu player must thoroughly command the arias as the performers do. Wu learned every aria and every role he accompanied by heart, watching the masters' performances, imitating the singing, feeling the roles' inner emotion and thought.

One day when he was 17, Wu found himself singing in a sweet and mellow voice for a female role's aria. Ever since, he has found more interest in singing than playing the jinghu.

Without professional training in performance, Wu grabbed every chance to learn the special movements of Peking Opera such as how to dance with the long white silk sleeves, a typical female role's movements in Peking Opera.

In 1982 he performed the leading female role in Romance of Chunfa and Qiulian (Chun Qiu Pei), one of Mei Lanfang's signature repertoires.

His performance impressed Zhang Junqiu (1920-97), renowned Peking Opera actor who specialized in female roles. Zhang praised him as "a young Mei Lanfang."

With an eye toward refining his singing, Wu did not give up playing the jinghu. After graduation, he joined the China National Peking Opera Theatre as a jinghu player in 1984.

The turning point of his life came in 1987 when he met Siyama Akio, a Japanese traveler and Peking Opera fan in Beijing. They fell in love and were married the next year.

In 1989, Wu composed and directed King Huainan, his first play. The debut in Beijing received wide and controversial response.

In that year Wu moved to Japan with his wife.

"To tell the truth, I was not very sure what I was going to do in Japan when I left China. I had to start from the very beginning," Wu said.

Pursuit of dreams

But time proved that Peking Opera, the cream of Chinese arts and culture, was the golden key to Wu's development in Japan.

He staged many performances of Peking Opera which were greatly welcomed by Japanese audience.

The versatile Wu often turned the solo shows into a vivid introduction class, demonstrating the movements, the arias, the operatic dialogues and monologues of different roles, explaining the unique facial make-up, the costumes, the settings, the accompaniment orchestra and the stories.

Meanwhile, Wu tried to develop jinghu music by combining the ancient Chinese instrumental music with electronic music. His scores caught the ear of Japanese label Avex, which signed him to an album contract.

Wu co-operated with some well-known Japanese musicians such as Kitaro and Miki Takashi.

"I pursued my dream from China to Japan. On the way I met many friends who have their own dreams. There's chemistry among us and we inspire each other to realize all the dreams," said Wu.

His 2002 jinghu solo album It's For You and this year's jinghu solo and concerto album Home Dream both hit the Japan's classic music scene.

In April last year Wu founded a Peking Opera troupe in Tokyo.

"Living in Japan for such a long time, I never felt away from Peking Opera. Instead, I have gained much deeper understanding of itself and its great influence in the theatre scene in the world."

To attract a wider audience, especially the young, Wu learns from folk music and modern accompaniment.

In August 2001 he premiered his second play Imperial Concubine Sails Eastward  (Guifei Dongdu) in Japan.

The play was also based on the history of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

Now Wu is working on his next play, Pictures of the Four Beauties (Si Mei Tu) which focuses on the household stories of Xishi, Wang Zhaojun, Diaochan and Yang Yuhuan.

The play is expected to debut in Beijing next May and after that Wu will tour Singapore and the United States in August and September.

(China Daily December 23, 2003)