"Lady Glory's Trek to the North"

          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.
 
 
 

Ben Wang
March, 1993 
4/99