The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion is a play by the Ming dynasty Chinese dramatist Tang Xianzu, completed in 1598 and written for performance as Kunqu opera, one of the oldest surviving forms of Chinese musical theater. The play tells of Du Liniang, a young woman who falls in love with a scholar, Liu Mengmei, whom she has only encountered in a dream, and who dies of lovesickness for him; deemed by the underworld to be predestined for marriage to Liu, she is restored to life, though her father initially has Liu imprisoned as a grave robber before an imperial pardon resolves the story. One of the four plays that make up Tang's celebrated cycle known as the Four Dreams, the full text runs to fifty-five scenes and, performed complete, takes upward of twenty-two hours, though it is far more often staged in shortened selections. Widely regarded as Tang Xianzu's masterpiece and one of the most celebrated works of the Kunqu repertoire, The Peony Pavilion continues to be performed on Chinese and international stages and has inspired modern adaptations in ballet, film and popular music.