This play was selected to be performed at the 2008 Folk Arts and Taiwanese Opera Festival in China. The playwright, Sun Fu-rie, used a frontier minority legend for adaptation, stressing the struggle one feels in the face of good and evil, envy and inferiority. The story is about the new military ...Read more
This play was selected to be performed at the 2008 Folk Arts and Taiwanese Opera Festival in China. The playwright, Sun Fu-rie, used a frontier minority legend for adaptation, stressing the struggle one feels in the face of good and evil, envy and inferiority.
The story is about the new military zhuangyuan, Han Yue-hong, of the Peacock Kingdom. The King wanted to marry his daughter to Han Yue-hong, after he comes back from a military expedition. Han Yue-hong was wounded by an enemy's arrow and fell down a cliff. When his twin brother Han Yue-di came down from their mountain abode to help with the expedition, he was mistaken for his brother and sent back to the court. Their mother forced Yue-di to disguise himself as his brother and marry Princess Xueji. The false consort prince felt uneasy but couldn't help falling in love with the Princess. To everybody's surprise, the real Han Yue-hong dragged his deformed body and wounded face back to the court. His sworn brother Gu Zheng-yi saw through the imposter scheme and exposed it to all. To protect the royal fame and the princess's honor, the King sentenced the princess to death by giving her a chalice of poisoned wine. Han Yue-hong couldn't bear to see his brother and the princess perish; he grabbed the chalice and drank to his own death.
The leading sheng (male characters) pair, Sun Shi-pei and Sun Shi-yong, played Han Yue-hong and Han Yue-di. A new talent from Ming Hwa Yuan, Chen Zhao-ting, supported the character of Princess Xueji. In the scene when she fell into the river, she gave a fascinating performance with her flowing sleeves.
Category | Xiqu(Traditional Opera) |
Type | Taiwanese Opera |
Chinese Title | 鬼駙馬 |
Group | Yi-Shin Taiwanese Opera Troupe |
Creative staff | Yi-Shin Taiwanese Opera Troupe |
Subtitle | Mandarin Chinese |
Premiere | 2007-12-01 |
Venue | Keelung Cultural Center, Keelung |
Duration | 150min |
Image Source | |
Other Works | The Unrestrained SOUL Duan Xiu |