Recorded 1 June 2011

Translated and annotated by Anne Rebull

Lecturer

Hua Wenyi 華文漪 (1941–2022) was among the best-known contemporary dan 旦 performers. Part of the first generation of kunqu students trained after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC), she was a member of the Shanghai Troupe [Appendix I], becoming its director in 1985. While she was on tour with the Shanghai Troupe in the United States, the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown led her to settle in California. In the following decades she became instrumental to the growth of kunqu outside the PRC, performing in several experimental productions, including an avant-garde production of The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting 牡丹亭) [Appendix F] that premiered in 1998 and was directed by Peter Sellars [Appendix H]. In 1997 she was named a National Heritage Fellow for the US National Endowment for the Arts.

Synopsis

The Peony Pavilion is today the most familiar and iconic kunqu 崑曲 play, and both excerpted scenes and more extended versions represent core repertoire for the main troupes. Written by Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 [Appendix G], its central figure is Du Liniang 杜麗娘, the 16-year-old daughter of the prefect. The scene that is the subject of Hua's lecture here depicts Du Liniang's visit to the abandoned family garden (“The Stroll in the Garden” [“Youyuan” 遊園]) where she dreams of a young scholar (“The Dream Interrupted” [“Jingmeng” 驚夢]). These two linked scenes, based on scene ten of The Peony Pavilion script, can be performed separately (the two halves have their own song suites), but they are most often performed together, and in this lecture Hua does not strongly differentiate them.

These two scenes are the centerpiece of the play as performed today. A preceding comic scene, known as “Chunxiang Disturbs Class” (“Chunxiang naoxue” 春香鬧學) and “The Schoolroom” (“Xuetang” 學堂), showcases the high spirits of Chunxiang 春香, the heroine's maid, and shows Chunxiang encouraging Du Liniang to distract herself from the ennui of her boudoir.