Kunqu is a traditional Chinese opera form. In Peony Pavilon it tells the story about love between Du Liniang and bachelor Liu Mengmei.

Although the father of Du Liniang wanted her to study „virtues of a wife“, she yearned freedom and despite her parents ban ran to a flower garden to admire the spring. After she returned home she fell asleep, dreaming about a meeting with an unknown bachelor in front of the Peony Pavilion and both of them fell in love. When she woke up, she could not forget the bachelor and eventually died of grief. Even after the burial Du Liniangs spirit was not at peace, she walked the garden and met again with the young man from her dream. He came to recover from an illness and after this meetnig she came back to her life with the help of people and flowers and never again left Liu Mengmei.

Founded in 1957, Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre is China's only state-level Kunqu Opera performing organization in the north of Yangtze River. During half a century of art transmission, a large number of outstanding performing artists of Kunqu Opera joined the Theatre and realized innovation and continuity of this art form in a new historical stage.

Cast and Characters: Wei Chunrong as Du Liniang Shao Zheng as Liu Mengmei Wang Jin as Chunxiang Hai Jun as Du Bao Bai Xiaojun as Lady Du Dong Honggang as Flower Judge Wang Yi as Taoist nun Stone Zhang Huan as Hunchback Guo Yu Xuejiao as Flower God Directed by Cao Wenzhen