Kun Opera: The Peony Pavilion 昆曲《牡丹亭》

:: Listen to the music for the Peony Pavilion now! ::

Not long ago, the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre performed the 27-act, three-part, nine-hour, “young lovers version” of The Peony Pavilion on three successive days at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Auditorium, and the performance was a huge success. During the several weeks prior to the performance of The Peony Pavilion, Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai (白先勇) talked up the play in Chinese-language print media and television programs in the San Francisco Bay area. In the eyes of many Americans, The Peony Pavilion is Kun Opera, and Kun Opera is The Peony Pavilion. To complement the performance of The Peony Pavilion at Berkeley, the Institute of East Asian Studies at Berkely held a symposium on Kun Opera, and at the start of the new academic semester on 28 August, the department started a class on kunqu. After the performance of The Peony Pavilion at UC Berkeley, it also showed at the Irvine, LA, and Santa Barbara campuses as well.

Regarded as “the mother of all operas”, Kunqu has a long history of over 500 years and is one of China’s extant oldest dramatic forms. It was listed as one of the 19 inaugural ” Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO in 2001. Kunqu Opera was included in the top list of the first batch “Human Beings’ Verbal and Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Work” (人类口述与非物质文化遗产代表作) selected by UNESCO.

As the current most ancient drama form, Kunqu Opera is one of the original three of the world’s largest ancient dramas. Starting from the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, Kunqu Opera is a performance and singing art with strict rules and forms, complete patterns, graceful and pleasant tunes, and gentle, lingering music.With an integration of literature, drama, performance, music, dance, and art, Kunqu Opera is the stage art with the most poetic and pictorial splendor. Having collected all advantages of China ancient aesthetics, Kunqu Opera has always been reputed as the founder of all dramas and considered a national treasure.Kunqu Opera The Peony Pavilion is the peak work in Chinese dramatic history and is the play that can bring the delicacy and romance of Kunqu Opera into full play.

Tang Xianzu, the author of The Peony Pavilion

Tang Xianzu 汤显祖(1550-1616), was born in Linchuan, Jiangxi Province. He had many courtesy names, such as Yi Reng, Hai Ruo, and Qingyuan Taoist Priest. This great dramatist, who lived during the reign of the Wanli Emperor during the Ming Dynasty, is often mentioned together with the English dramatist Shakespeare not only because they coincidently died in the same year, but also because their intelligence and achievements are of the same caliber, just like two unprecedented brilliant stars adding to each other’s splendor in the eastern and western skies of drama.

Abstract of the New Abridged Version of The Peony Pavilion

In Lin’an city, Zhejiang Province, there lived a girl from a rich family named Du Du Liniang. One day, she goes to the garden to have some fun. She is mesmerized by the unsurpassed spring scenery and she is ravished by an intoxicating dream, in which a handsome scholar (Liu Mengmei) comes to her with a willow branch and they fall in love at first sight. Waking from the dream, she finds no way to part with his image in her heart and it seems impossible for her to lock up her heart that has just been freed from the bondage of feudal ethics. She is so enchanted by the feeling that she can find herself going nowhere else except in the dream where she stays with Liu Mengmei.

As a result, she gets lost in the smothering atmosphere of her family where she can not follow her heart to choose her ideal spouse. She suffers so much in missing him that she is doomed to fall ill and then return to dust. As she lies dying, she instructs her maid Chunxiang to bury her beside the plum tree in the garden of her family and to bury her portrait under a stone from Taihu Lake. Liu Mengmei seems to be directed by this invisible power and he passes through Lin’an on his way to take an examination. He falls ill in Lin’an and stays in the Plum Blossom Temple that Du Liniang’s father has built beside her grave. Liu finds Du Liniang’s portrait there and he falls in love with her at first sight, even though what he is looking at is just a portrait. What’s more, he speaks to her portrait every day and Du Liniang is moved by him again. In his rendezvous with Du’s spirit, the fact that she has died is revealed by, and he follows what Du instructs him to do: to unearth her corpse. Upon doing so, Du Liniang is revived by the power of their deep love. Eventually, as we suspect and hope, they are united and get married.

厅堂版《牡丹亭》梗概：临安富家千金杜丽娘，一日去后花园游玩，春色沉醉，不觉小寐。梦中见一俊朗书生(柳梦梅)持柳枝而来，两情欢好一晌温存。梦醒怅然若失，感念成疾，竟至重病而亡。弥留之际嘱丫鬟春香将她葬在后花园大梅树下，将其自画像埋于太湖石下。千里之外的柳梦梅亦梦有所感，因赴考路经临安，抱病淹留，机缘巧合拾得丽娘自画像一见倾心，日日玩赏声声呼唤，叫得杜丽娘魂魄跨越阴阳前来相会，以幽魂之身荐枕于柳梦梅。二人情到深处，丽娘托出实情，梦梅痴心一往，掘坟救丽娘回生，二人终成眷属。