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An Emboidered Robe
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The Lotus Song |
The Lotus Song |
The Lotus Song |
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Wang, Taiqi |
Wang, Taiqi |
Yang, Ling |
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The Lotus Song |
The Lotus Song |
The Lotus Song |
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Wang, Taiqi Yin, Haiyi |
Wang, Taiqi Yin, Haiyi |
Wang, Taiqi Yin, Haiyi |
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An Emboidered Robe : The Lotus Song
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The highlight episode in a long Kunqu drama, "The Lotus Song"
tells how the two protagonists and lovers find each other after
suffering separation and heartaches.
The play opens with Zheng Yuan-ho, a young man from a wealthy
and prominent family, down and out at the end of his rope. His
current miserable state is the product of his own spoilt and
sybaritic life style, as he has squandered all his money and
belongings on Li Yaxian, a stunning beauty, in a pleasure-house.
Now penniless and turned out by the madam of the pleasure-house
and his own family, Zheng Yuan-ho has succumbed to being a
common, homeless beggar. On this winter day of a violent
snowstorm, he stumbles along in the neighborhood of the
pleasure-house, begging while singing the Lotus Song, a tune
sung by beggars pleading for pity and compassion.
It so happens that Yaxian, the loving demimonde who has
genuinely fallen for Zheng Yuan-ho, has heard the latest news
that her lover had turned into a beggar. Quite upset over his
misfortunes and alarmed by the severe weather on this day,
Yaxian asks her confidante Yinzheng, another young woman in the
pleasure-house, to go outside to find any beggar who might know
the whereabouts of her darling. Sure enough, Yinzheng comes face
to face with the fallen man. Yaxian is at once informed and the
play ends with the two lovers reunited in relief and tearful
joy.
The play poses as a morality drama to warn against debauchery
and hedonism, which the play states can only lead to pain and
destruction. In the aftermath of this episode -- not performed
this afternoon -- Zheng Yuan-ho transforms himself into an
upright and studious scholar and passes the imperial examination
with the highest honor. He and Yaxian are married, and they live
happily ever after. |
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