Chinese opera hits big in small theaters

Tradition turns intimate as audiences get a close-up look at how various styles are created, performed, and expressed, Chen Nan reports.

Li Chanchan and Fan Yuyan, two young students from the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing, drew a crowd in a courtyard as they demonstrated a traditional jaw-dropping feat before one unleashed a burst of fire. The flames flared and vanished in an instant, prompting gasps and applause from spectators gathered among the courtyard's gray bricks and tiled roofs.

The demonstration is a signature Qinqiang Opera stage skill: fire-breathing, known for its dramatic visual impact.

Other performers demonstrated the sweeping spear movements of Peking Opera, offering a glimpse of the physical precision and theatrical spectacle that has sustained traditional Chinese opera for generations.

At the 13th Xiqu Opera Black Box Festival, which opened at Star Theaters in Beijing on Oct 14, tradition is also being explored through more intimate, unexpected storytelling forms.

The festival runs through Nov 22 and brings together 16 productions tailored for smaller theaters spanning 11 traditional Chinese opera genres, including Peking Opera, Kunqu Opera, Yuju Opera, Pingju Opera, and Cantonese Opera.

The opening performance, The Face in the Mirror, a Huaiju Opera production, takes audiences into a world of illusion and psychological unease, asking what happens when people finally obtain what they desire.

Another production, the Cantonese Opera, Life, Death and the Skull, turns an ancient philosophical tale into an exploration of friendship, mortality and grief.

Though different in style and subject, the two works share an interest in their characters' inner lives — and in the questions those stories might raise for audiences today.

For the scriptwriter of The Face in the Mirror, Yu Sihan, the idea began with a fascination with the magical mirror in the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

When she first read the novel in middle school, she was captivated by the story of "fengyue baojing", a mirror that reveals the tension between desire and reality. One side offers the image a person longs to see; the other confronts them with a skull, exposing the truth behind their fantasies.

The image stayed with Yu for more than a decade before she developed it into a script for the Huaiju Opera troupe of Taizhou, Jiangsu province.

"I kept wondering what would happen if this mirror appeared in an otherworldly place. What would different people desire deep in their hearts, and how would their fates change?" says Yu, 32.

The resulting play centers on two characters trapped by traditional expectations: a widow who has spent years upholding her chastity, and a scholar who repeatedly fails the imperial examinations but remains consumed by his pursuit of official success.

In a dreamlike world, both get what they have long wanted. Yet fulfillment brings fresh troubles rather than happiness, turning their fantasies into a psychological nightmare.

Instead of relying on spectacle alone, the production uses the mirror to examine desires that can gradually become prisons.

Its central question, she says, extends well beyond the historical world of the characters.

"What kind of achievement are you chasing, and what kind of monument are you trapped by?" Yu asks. "In the play, people are trapped by the pursuit of official success or the expectations represented by the chastity arch. Today, it might be a professional title, a house, money, or other people's expectations."

Yu hopes younger audiences will recognize themselves in the characters and reconsider whether what they pursue is worth the sacrifices they make.

For Yu, making the play has also been a personal exercise in confronting ambition and anxiety. At 32, she says she too can get caught up in the pressure to keep improving and surpassing herself.

The work's contemporary concerns are matched by an effort to preserve the artistic identity of Huaiju Opera, known for a musical style often described as powerful and emotionally expressive. Yu believes that innovation should not come at the expense of the genre's distinct vocal traditions.

The challenge, she adds, is to combine this musical foundation with stage movement and storytelling that speaks to contemporary sensibilities.