Peony Pavilion

Author: Tang Xianzu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-04-01
Features: The Peony Pavilion is the masterpiece of Tang Xianzu, a great composer of the Ming Dynasty, when the author's thoughts and art had fully matured. The Ming Dynasty storytelling novel Du Liangni's Love for Beauty and Return from the Afterlife provided the basic plot for The Peony Pavilion. In the Startling Dream, Seeking the Dream, and The Mournful Death scenes of the opera, several original lines from the storytelling novel are preserved. In the novel, after Du Liangni is resurrected, a marriage based on social status is successfully arranged. However, in the opera, Tang Xianzu undertook a creative transformation, blending the legendary story with the realities of Ming Dynasty society, giving it a strong anti-feudal and anti-traditionalist tone and embodying the brilliant ideal of pursuing individual freedom. The female protagonist, Du Liangni, is one of the most beloved young female characters in classical opera. Her birth and social status dictate that she should become a virtuous wife and mother who adheres to the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues." Her life lesson is the first poem of the Book of Songs, Quanju. Traditional views consider it a praise of the "virtues of empresses and consorts" and the best reading material for young women. Yet she intuitively recognizes it as a love song. Encouraged by her maid Chunxiang, she secretly leaves her inner quarters. "Without visiting the gardens, how would one know the splendor of spring," she muses, as the natural beauty of spring awakens her youthful vitality. She lives in an environment shrouded in feudal etiquette, almost isolated from the world, watching her youth fade before her yet feeling helpless and unable to resist, forced to suppress her passionate feelings within. Tang Xianzu did not follow the conventional approach of previous novels and operas, where characters fall in love at first sight, court each other in the private garden, and pledge their love there. Instead, he arranged for Du Liangni to meet her lover in a dream after her garden visit, followed by a scene where she returns to the garden to Seek the Dream again. Startling Dream and Seeking the Dream are the outbursts of the passion that has been building within Du Liangni, as well as her practical act of defiance against the real world. The emotional power of The Peony Pavilion lies in its strong romantic ideal of pursuing individual freedom and opposing feudal etiquette. This ideal emerges as the antithesis of the feudal system. All that is good and virtuous belongs to Du Liangni. Tang Xianzu successfully portrays her beauty, but the passages that depict her emotions and ideals are even more captivating. The Peony Pavilion shows that she dies not because of the destruction of her love, but because of her futile yearning for it. Through Du Liangni's character, The Peony Pavilion expresses the aspirations of the vast majority of young men and women at the time for individual liberation, freedom of love, and the autonomy of marriage, while exposing how feudal etiquette crushes people's happiness and beautiful ideals.