Event 

Title:

Peking Opera: Six Chapters of a Floating Life

When:

Thu 22 Apr 2010 - Fri 23 Apr 2010 19.30

Where:

National Center for the Performing Arts, 国家大剧院

Area of Beijing:

Central

Category:

Theater Performance

Description

Although the opera depicts the love story between Shen Fu and Yun Niang, who lived in the Emperor Jiaqing's reign of the Qing Dynasty, their marriage characterized by domestic and romantic joys, naturalness, naivety, and harmony touches the heart of today's spectators and makes the audience feel the same way as they experienced and are in sympathy with their feelings. With play within a play, the opera elaborates on what marriage is to the audience. It shows to the audience that marriage depends on love, which relies on perseverance, respect and simplicity. Although Shen Fu and Yun Niang led a simple and hard life, struggling to make a decent living, they found joy amid hardship, and created a pure land of tranquility and harmony against a social environment filled with material desires, vanity and dissipation. Marriage should be like theirs

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Venue

Venue:

National Center for the Performing Arts, 国家大剧院     Website

Street:

A short walk west from Tian'AnMen Square

Nearest Subway :

Tian'AnMen Xi (West) (line 1)

Ad. in Chinese :

国家大剧院

Area of Beijing :

Central

Description

The giant titanium-and-glass dome west of Tian'AnMen Square (behind the Great Hall of the People) hosts Chinese and international art performances of the highest calibre. The complex houses an opera house, a music hall and a drama hall and can seat up to 6,200. It is the flagship performance space in China. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, it opened in 2007.

The dome is 212 meters across in the east-west direction, 144 meters in the north-south direction, and is 46 meters high. It is situated in the center of a large shallow pond and the entrance passes under it. Paul Andreu has said that he envisioned the hall as a tribute to the traditional Chinese image of Heaven and Earth: round above square.

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