Southeast Flies the Peacock is one of the best-known love stories in China. It's a 2,000-year-old narrative poem, and people believe the story was set in Anqing, in Anhui Province. So they adapted it for Huangmei Opera, an opera style unique to the area. Now a new rendition of the classic piece has been worked out, and is being staged as part of the ongoing Meet in Beijing Arts Festival.

It was not unusual in feudal China for a mother-in-law who disliked her daughter-in-law to order her son to divorce her. But the couple in the poem became household names because they committed suicide together in defiance of the woman. It is one of the most famous tragedies in Chinese literature, and has been staged numerous times in various art forms. But this time, the story has been rewritten to focus on the daughter-in-law's feelings and emotions. Most of the confrontation is shown by conversation instead of arias, which makes the play more like a drama than a traditional opera. The director definitely has his own thoughts on the matter.

Zha Mingzhe, director of Southeast Flies The Peacock, said, "We want to bring contemporary understanding to the story. It's the 21st century now. We don't want to simply sing out the 2,000 year old poem or repeat previous renditions."

Attracting modern audiences is a common problem for the producers of China's traditional operas. A variety of methods have been tried, including applying contemporary directing theories, writing the dialogue in vernacular and addressing modern topics. But so far few of these efforts have won acclaim from either the academic music aficionados or the general audiences. It's certainly a brave try by the Huangmei opera singers to rewrite the classic, but whether it's a success remains to be seen.

(CCTV.com May 26, 2004)