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Autumn at the Han Palace
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Lady Glory's Trek to the North |
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Shi, Jiehua |
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Autumn at the Han Palace : Lady Glory's Trek to the North
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Inspired by "Autumn at the Han Palace," a masterpiece of poetic
drama written by Ma Zhiyuan of the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368),
"Lady Glory's Trek to the North" is a Kunqu theater replete with
sophisticated singing, dexterous acting and dancing, which makes
it a popular but most demanding work.
A great beauty, Lady Glory was a court lady-in-waiting in the
Han dynasty (206 B.C-221 A.D.) at a time when the dynasty was
dangereously threatened by the military strength of the Huns to
the north. Much to her misfortune, Lady Glory fell prey to the
plot of a traitorous and perfidious minister, Mao Yanshou, who
suggested to the chief of the Huns that he demand her hand from
the emperor of the Han dynasty. Out of cowardice and fear, the
emperor agreed to the marriage proposal and Lady Glory was
promptly sent on an arduous journey to the land of the northern
barbarians.
The sadness suffered by the ill-fated Lady Glory and the
hardships of the trek, made worse by the severe cold, join
forces to heighten the dramatic power of the opera. In the
classical Chinese theater, there is a famous saying regarding
this opera, which is a comment on its extreme challenging
qualities, that goes as follows: deaths of the three leads often
occur at a performance of “Lady Glory’s Trek to the North.” They
are Lady Glory’s death from exhaustion from singing the extended
arias, Wang Long’s death from exhaustion from acting, and the
stable boy’s death from exhaustion resulted from tumbling.
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