Du Liniang, the daughter of Nanyang satrap Du Bao, is very beautiful in her twenties and eighties, but she is trapped at home all day, studying under the pedant Liang. One day, my maid Chunxiang and I went to the back garden to enjoy the scenery. Impressed is that "it is colorful, as if it were given to that broken well." After coming back, I fell asleep sadly and dreamed of a scholar, Liu Mengmei.
Liu marveled at Li Niang's words, "As beautiful as flowers and jade, like water passing by, it's just answering a few idle questions and looking for it, and you feel sorry for yourself." They fell in love at first sight, and the peony pavilion has been close for a hundred years. Li Niang's heart ached after her dream, but she couldn't find her own dream. With the lament that "it seems that flowers and plants are loved, life and death follow people's wishes, and no one complains", she died of illness. Before she died, she painted her true face and told Chunxiang to hide the painting scroll at the bottom of the stone in Taihu Lake and bury herself under the plum tree in the garden.
Three years later, Liu Mengmei, a scholar, accidentally entered this decadent garden, found a small portrait painted by Li Niang, recognized her in her dream, and loved her deeply, so she did not hesitate to send a tomb and met the wrong person. Li Niang came back to life and married Liu Sheng. The whole play ends with a "happy reunion" between Liu Mengmei, the champion of new high school subjects, and the emperor.
Appreciation of Mudan Pavilion
"Peony Pavilion" was originally based on the novel "The Soul of Du Liniang Muse Rejuvenating", but in the cover of the story of a gifted scholar and a beautiful woman, it is endowed with immortal feelings, which makes the script unique and dazzling.
As Tang Xianzu said in the play "Inscription": "Those who are like Li Niang can be described as lovers' ears. I don't know what happened, but it was deep. The living can die and the dead can live. People who are born but can't die and die but can't be resurrected have no feelings. "This feeling of life and death makes Du Liniang, a beautiful and spiritually striking image, stand out from the vast legendary creation and live on the stage of Kunqu Opera for more than 300 years.
Ming Lu Tiancheng's music is called "thrilling, ingenious, endless, really worthy of the ages!" In terms of artistic skills, The Peony Pavilion is gloomy and ups and downs, and depicts the inner consciousness of the characters in a meticulous and freehand manner. The lyrics are graceful without carving, as Wang Ming Jide said: "Its talent is between shallow and deep, thick and light, elegant and vulgar, which is a unique samadhi."