By Wang Zhiyong
China.org.cn staff reporter

Fairyland Qinghai, a multi-act, audio-visual extravaganza, was premiered at Beijing's Poly Theater on February 19, 2009.

Epic opera Fairyland Qinghai was premiered in Beijings on February 19, 2009. Click the picture to see more photos on next pages. [China.org.cn]

The six-act opera, created at a reputed cost of twelve million yuan in an effort to boost Qinghai's tourism industry, is the brainchild of Jidi Majia, vice-governor of the sparsely populated western province. Born in Sichuan Province and a member of the Yi minority ethnic group, Jidia Majia is a well known poet and a leading member of the Poetry Institute of China.

The opera is based on the legend of the Queen Mother of the West and other myths of the various people's of the Kunlun mountains.

The Queen Mother of the West is a sacred figure to a number of China's nationalities. She has been compared to the Goddess Venus in Roman mythology.

Fairyland Qinghai does not simply repeat the legend of the Queen Mother of the West but attempts to amalgamate the myths of a number of ethnic groups to express what its creators see as the eternal humanism at the heart of Oriental culture. It also seems to be trying to convey the idea of a synthesis of China's ethnic groups as a means to social progress.

The show's artistic supervisor is film musician Zhao Jiping whose son, Zhao Lin, composed the New Age style score that fuses Han and Tibetan music with that of smaller ethic groups such as the Tu and Salar. The director, well-known film-maker Hu Xuehua, uses innovative lighting to create a series of spectacular effects.

The Opera tells how the Queen Mother of the West revives the gods to recreate an ideal world based on mythology and legend. She appears as the creator, redeemer and leader of both the physical and symbolic worlds. She can overcome space and time with her spirit of self-sacrifice and love for mankind. As the perfect representation of the divine and the human, she unites gods, human being and all living things.

So much for the ideas, such as they are; the show itself is little more than a collection of symbolic dances, and is very hard to follow. There is no dialogue, and I overheard several people in the audience talking about how confused they were.

On February 22, the creators of the opera organized a workshop with a group of Beijing artists and critics to ask for advice on how the production might be improved. Fairyland Qinghai is striving to be another blockbuster after the success of Tibetan Riddle and Yunnan Imprission.

Qinghai Province, abbreviated as "Qing" in Chinese, takes its name from the Qinghai Lake, the largest salt water lake in China.

Qinghai is part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the so-called "Roof of the World" in western China. It is home to the Kunlun mountain range and is the source of the Yellow, Yangtze and the Lancang (Mekong) rivers.

The Province borders on the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Tibet Autonomous Region. It is twice as large as Germany but has only five million inhabitants, 55 percent of whom are Han, 21 percent Tibetan, and the remainder a mixture of Tu, Hui, Salar and Mongolians.

Qinghai has been an ethnic melting pot for centuries, mixing Tibetan, Han, Mongol, and Turkic peoples.

With an average altitude of 3,000 meters above sea level, the province is home to many endangered species of plants and animals.

The unique cultures, traditions and traditional festivals of Qinghai's minority ethnic groups are a major attraction for tourists.

Snow-covered mountains, icy peaks, deserts, vast pastures and sparkling lakes mesmerize visitors. Ta'er Monastery (Kumbum Monastery) is one of the most important centers of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism, and the vast Qinghai Lake, is a magnet for nature lovers and bird-watchers. An international cycle race from Xining to Qinghai Lake takes place annually.

(China.org.cn February 23, 2009)