Adapted and produced by the famous writer Bai Xianyong, the "Youth Edition of "Peony Pavilion"" was launched on April 29, 2004, and the performance became famous and was well received, and it was invited to perform in various parts of The country and internationally, setting off an unprecedented upsurge of viewing; and then went deep into the campus to infiltrate the kunqu art into the lives of the younger generation through demonstration performances and promotion courses.
Bai Xianyong personally led a variety of large-scale planning, performances and runs, combined with cultural talents from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, so that Kunqu opera contacted new audiences, produced new resonance and wide influence, and made more than a whole generation of people shake their hearts.
Screened at the Beijing International Film Festival in 2021, "Peony Returns the Soul - Bai Xianyong and the Revival of Kunqu Opera" will once again review the beautiful process of Kunqu cultural revival and public collective participation.
"Peony Pavilion" is Tang Xianzu's masterpiece, created in 1598, and is hailed as an equally important love myth as the contemporary Romeo and Juliet (published in 1597). The story describes the love between Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei, a scholar, who transcends life and death, and is a classic song that celebrates youth, love and life.
Bai Xianyong, who has formed an indissoluble relationship with Kunqu opera since childhood, once said: "Kunqu opera has no other, it has a 'beautiful' word, the beauty of rhetoric, the beauty of dance, the beauty of music, and the beauty of human feelings." ”
More than 10 years ago, he saw that Kunqu opera, which has been listed by UNESCO as the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", still can't stop withering and declining, and the actors, audiences and performance forms are gradually aging, so he exhales and runs around to form a strong creative team - in addition to urging the senior artists of suzhou Kunqu opera to "pass on" and "inherit" the characters to personally inherit and train a group of young actors of the "Little Orchid Class", he is more actively promoted on campus, so that Kunqu opera can truly "return the soul" from the inside out and replay the beautiful light.
In 2007, the "Youth Edition of "Peony Pavilion" accumulated 100 performances around the world, and in 2011, it reached a peak of 200 performances, and in recent years, this number has not stopped growing.
In 2017, the Kunqu Heritage and Research Center of Peking University hosted the production of "Campus Edition of Peony Pavilion", which was first performed in 2018 and received a warm response, followed by a tour in many places. At this point, the "legend" of Kunqu revival initiated by Bai Xianyong has entered a new inheritance and milestone.
The documentary "Peony Returns the Soul - Bai Xianyong and the Revival of Kunqu Opera" traces this period of Kunqu revival. This is not a documentary based on a timeline, but more of a video record with "Kun flavor" and poetry. Director and screenwriter Deng Yongxing said: "From the very beginning, I wanted to make this film itself a Kunqu opera. Taking the four hundred years of history as the time span, Tang Xianzu's texts, Teacher Bai, the workmanship of Kunqu opera, the mission of inheritance, etc. are used as materials to arrange when they will play and when they will be invisible. ”
Deng Yongxing conducted a four- or five-hour interview with Bai Xianyong at the Suzhou Kunqu Theater, depicting Bai Xianyong's meticulous painting and accumulation over the past 18 years, and then trimming it into the trunk according to this interview, and telling the oral teachings of nearly 100 years, the persistence and inheritance of Suzhou Kunqu artists, and the blossoming results of the participation of students in learning and performance on campus, in a beautiful and concise film language.