Peony Pavilion at the Met

Zhang Ran, who plays the ghost lover, confessed that she found it more of a challenge to perform in the Astor Court than in the Kezhi Garden in Zhujiajiao, an ancient town in Shanghai’s suburbs, where the play had previously been staged for two years. “The performance space is much smaller at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it’s closer to the auditorium. Every nuance of the players’ body movements and facial expressions was discernible to the audience.”

Zhang Jun (right), dubbed the “prince of Kunqu Opera,” plays the leading man.

Cultural Barrier?

Tan Dun’s version of Peony Pavilion has only four acts, compared with the original 55. It was first staged in a private mansion built at the beginning of the 20th century in Shanghai’s Zhujiajiao Town. It was there that Maxwell K. Hearn, curator of the Met’s Asian Art Department, watched this version and proposed to Tan Dun that they bring it to the Metropolitan Museum.

There could be no better site in the U.S. to present this Kunqu classic than the Astor Court. Conceived of by the museum’s trustee Brook Astor, who spent a period of her childhood in Beijing, the installation was created and assembled in 1981 by expert craftsmen from China using traditional methods, materials and hand tools. Its design was masterminded by Professor Chen Congzhou, an architectural historian from Shanghai’s Tongji University. The project was the first collaboration in gardening art between the U.S. and the PRC.

Prior to the American debut of Peony Pavilion there were concerns that cultural barriers might prohibit American audiences from properly apprehending a native Chinese theatrical genre. But Maxwell K. Hearn brushed off such worries, saying that Italian opera is enjoyed all over the world by many who don’t understand the Italian language. He was confident this charming tale told through ancient Chinese opera would win over American audiences.

“Peony Pavilion is a love story. And love, an essential human emotion, is a perpetual theme in artistic creations worldwide,” said Zhu Wanjin, China’s deputy consul general to New York. He lauded its performance in the U.S. as a significant event in the bilateral cultural exchanges in a year that marked the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s visit to China and the publication of Sino-U.S. Joint Communiqué.

Mr. Zhu believed the abridged version of Peony Pavilion, which was originally 20-plus hours long, sets a good example for the adaptation of traditional operas to modern lifestyles and preferences. He noted that China’s traditional operas are losing their appeal to the younger generation because of their grueling length and excruciatingly slow pace. The condensed remake focuses on the central plot and leading characters, and integrates the highbrow aesthetics of yesteryear with present-day popular tastes, expanding its relevance to audiences of varied cultural backgrounds.

Zhu’s opinion has been substantiated by the warm response from the Americans who watched the play at Astor Court. With the help of subtitles they could easily follow the thoughts, feelings and actions of the characters. “It’s terrific,” remarked Joan Lebold Cohen, an art historian, photographer and curator who has studied Chinese art for decades. She admitted that if the play had dragged on for hours like a traditional Kunqu Opera normally does, she would have become bored and restive. But she was enthralled from start to finish by the abridged Met version.

Waking a Sleeping Beauty

Peony Pavilion is part of the Met’s celebration of Chinese gardens for which it has set aside eight galleries to showcase the exhibition’s collection of paintings and objects. On entering “Chinese Gardens: Pavilions, Studios, Retreats” the visitor enters a world of both nature and the supernatural that embraces the transient quality of gardens and their inhabitants as they constantly bloom and wilt.

Shirley Young, chair of the U.S.-China Cultural Institute and co-producer of the play, told the audience of a special preview the night before the opening that bringing Peony Pavilion into one of the world’s greatest museums was a rare and valued experience for the art of Kunqu and a fresh experiment for the Met. The show was attended by several of the most esteemed personalities from the international art world, including directors of some of the world’s best-known museums.

That night Tan Dun also elaborated on the inspiration behind the production. “I aspired to do a Kunqu in a real garden as early as five years ago. Today my dream comes true. I have been looking for Chinese beauty, which I think is encoded in gardens and courtyards. Today I find Chinese beauty in New York: it can be discerned in the singers’ voice, in the space around us and in Kunqu.”

The composer also said that during extensive travels around the world he has noticed that there are Chinese-style gardens and courtyard complexes in almost every major city. These islands of Chinese culture are generally either tokens of twin city partnerships or donations from local Chinese expats. These installations of high artistic and cultural value are nevertheless often neglected as no more than venues for leisure time. “I told myself: I am going to bring Peony Pavilion to Chinese gardens in every part of the planet, bringing these sleeping beauties to life with the powerful music of Kunqu,” Tan Dun said.

He is on the way to fulfilling this ambition. Following its strong début in New York, his Peony Pavilion has received invitations from other U.S. cities. Musée du Louvre and the British Museum have also expressed interest in importing the spectacle to their own premises.

Victorian-era English author Samuel Butler once wrote that the history of art is the history of revivals – a maxim that Kunqu Opera is soon expected to prove. The success of Peony Pavilion heralds a new chapter in the venerable art form’s development, opening this former preserve of China’s well read and wellborn up to a whole new audience.