Category: commentary3

Taiwanese Opera By Tiffany Lay As I have been watching the opera videos for class and doing the reading assignments. I have also been sharing with my family my studies and it has come to my attention that Taiwanese Opera (歌仔戲) is also a form of opera that is of…

Tang Xianzu: Connecting Three Realms with a Bee By Brenda Schatz In the Cyril Birch translation version of the Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting (Tang Xianzu), there is a legend of love and longing, where a consummate dream of passion is interrupted; yet it is so potent that it manifests through…

Yue Opera Version of The Peony Pavilion By Colgan Powell The Yue Opera version of “The Peony Pavilion” was the first adaptation that I have seen and I did not consider it “modern” in the sense of what I think most people consider modern. I thought the approach to be pretty…

Qing: Falling Love with the Concept of Love in Contemporary Society By Xiru Zhao Tang Xianzu writes “Love comes nowhere, but once involved in it, people will never come back.” In The Peony Pavilion, Bridal Du’s love seems to me just come from nowhere. She went the Peony Pavilion for…

The Ending of the Western Bower By  Valerie Shor The ending of the Western Bower in the Yue version feels more real. The ending of the fourth act written in the original makes it seem as though Yingying and Zhang share a deep connection when he dreams of Yingying wishing to…