The Tang Xianzu Memorial Hall in Fuzhou is a comprehensive cultural venue built to commemorate Tang Xianzu, one of the world’s hundred great cultural figures and a master of Ming‑dynasty drama in China. It is also one of Jiangxi Province’s ten major memorial halls dedicated to historical luminaries.
Latest News | “Love springs forth without knowing why, yet it runs deep and unwavering”—The past and present of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe’s complete production of “The Peony Pavilion”
Author:
Source:
Tang Xianzu Memorial Hall Official Account
Time:
2024-04-08
How can one know spring’s beauty is so exquisite without stepping into the garden?
Almost whenever Kunqu opera is mentioned, people immediately think of “The Peony Pavilion.”
I also think of the most classic line, “A Dream in the Garden.”
This most celebrated work among the “Four Dreams of Linchuan” by the literary master Tang Xianzu has, for more than four centuries since its creation, come to be regarded as synonymous with Kunqu opera.
Over the years, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe has undertaken more than a dozen revisions, refinements, and interpretations of the Kunqu classic “The Peony Pavilion.”
In 2022, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe traced the origins of the art form, unearthed historical materials, and painstakingly refined its production, adhering to the spirit of the original work and employing a contemporary aesthetic to present a full‑length staging of “The Peony Pavilion.”
In November 2022, the complete production of “The Peony Pavilion” premiered in Shanghai to resounding success, earning heartfelt resonance and unanimous acclaim from both longtime and new audiences.
In 2023, the complete production of “The Peony Pavilion” embarked on a nationwide tour.
The tour spanned Jiangxi, Ningxia, Beijing, Henan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and other regions, earning widespread acclaim and enthusiastic responses wherever it went.
More than four centuries ago, in Tang Xianzu’s original “The Peony Pavilion,” the scenes, musical forms, and even the Tang‑style poetic lines that conclude each act—
In this production, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe has made every effort to preserve the original text without altering a single word.
“Not a single character omitted,” “preserving the work in its entirety.” Such complete restoration, at its core, amounts to a form of “recreation.”
Some viewers may see it as the love story of Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei,
In fact, it is even more a monumental work of Ming‑dynasty social philosophy and artistic aesthetics.
The eight-hour stage production is grand, exquisitely beautiful, elegant, and profoundly moving, embodying the Chinese aesthetic ethos that seeks to express one’s aspirations through objects.
“Embodying principle in emotion” and “balancing form and spirit with profound artistic conception” both reflect the unity of knowledge, emotion, will, and action.
April 13, 2:00 PM
The Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe’s Complete Production of “The Peony Pavilion”
Special Invitation from the Celebrity Living Room
Yue Meiti, Zhang Jingxian, Luo Chenxue, Hu Weilu
Let’s chat about Kunqu Opera together.
The Past and Present of “The Peony Pavilion”
Host: Yu Xiating
Afternoon tea seat: RMB 358 per person
Invited Guest
Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe
The Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe is a professional performing arts ensemble under key national protection and support. Founded in 1978, it was first led by the renowned Peking–Kunqu master Yu Zhenfei, and its current director is the distinguished Kunqu performer Gu Haohao.
The Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe takes the protection and transmission of Kunqu opera as its mission. Since its founding, it has rescued, collated, and staged nearly 300 exquisite traditional excerpts, as well as close to 70 full-length operas.
While committed to the preservation and transmission of traditional arts, the theater company has also actively fostered the creation of new works, earning four times the designation of key supported productions under the Ministry of Culture’s National Stage Art Excellence Project and the National Stage Art Excellence Creation Support Program.
It has received the China Opera and Drama Society Award three times and, on numerous occasions, been honored with national arts accolades such as the “Five-One Project” Award, the Wenhua Grand Award, the Wenhua New Repertoire Award, the China Theatre Festival Repertoire Award, and the Outstanding Repertoire Award at the China Kunqu Opera Art Festival, conferred by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture, the China Dramatists Association, and other authorities.
The troupe boasts a full range of theatrical specialties, a stellar cast, and an impressive ensemble of talented performers. To date, 13 members have collectively won the China Theatre Plum Blossom Award 14 times, two have received the Wenhua Performance Award—the Chinese government’s prize for culture and arts—twice, and 23 have been honored with the Shanghai Magnolia Award for Dramatic Performance 30 times.
In 1986, it was awarded the Ministry of Culture’s First Prize for the Revitalization of Kunqu Opera and was hailed as “a first‑rate troupe, with first‑rate actors, first‑rate productions, and first‑rate performances.”
The Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe pursues artistic excellence through compelling productions and masterful performances, and has toured the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, and…
Performances in Belgium, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Albania, Singapore, Malaysia, as well as in China’s Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions, have earned high praise and enthusiastic acclaim from audiences both at home and abroad, enjoying a distinguished reputation.
Editor: Deng Chao | Source: Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe
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