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A young girl appears as soon as the first notes of music are heard. Draped in a richly embroidered costume, she performs graceful hand movements. The elegance of her gestures is enhanced by her long silk sleeves. Accompanied by a flute, she begins to sing and the audience holds its breath.

The scene is an excerpt from “The Peony Pavilion”, one of the classic plays of the Kunqu Opera. From September 22, 2008, such scenes can easily be accessed by every aficionado at the Kunqu Opera Museum. This joint effort to revive this traditional art form by Shanghai Kunqu Troupe and Kunqu Opera Museum, merges two of the largest Kunqu powerhouses in China.

The Shanghai Kunqu Troupe is home to a host of leading young performers, eight of whom have won the Plum Blossom award nine times, and a total of 10 actors and actresses of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe who have been officially elected as national-class Kunqu artists and first-grade actors.

Kunqu Opera museum opened in 2003 in Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province. The exhibits include masks, costumes, manuscripts and ancient instruments. The design of the museum is mellow and exquisite. Carved beams and painted pillars echo with winding corridors, elegant pavilions and intriguing rockeries, recapturing the scene of Kunqu Opera in ancient times.

Teacher of Various Drama Forms

With a history of more than 600 years, Kunqu was dubbed the "teacher of various drama forms”, and is one of the earliest forms of traditional Chinese drama. Its operatic melodies originated from Kunshan in Jiangsu Province. After extensive exploration and reworking by its performers, it gradually developed into today's Kunqu.

Before the mid-Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Kunshan melodies were popular in central Jiangsu, until Wei Liangfu, a singer of melodies in the northern style, migrated to Kunshan from Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Together with performing singers of southern melodies, he made major changes to the songs of Kunshan. In order to make the accompanying music suit these new songs, Wei Liangfu also adapted the musical instruments of the time. This was how Kunqu, a new form of drama combining both northern and southern musical characteristics, came into being.