The Fragrance of Chrysanthemums and Orchids – A Close Encounter of Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera: Jingkun Theatre and Shandong Peking Opera TheatreLeisure and Cultural Services DepartmentChinese Opera Festival 2019

This is a unique performance.
The audience is in such close proximity with the actors that they can actually perceive every movement and every facial expression of the actors on stage.
The programming is diverse in range, covering comedy, serious drama, martial art and civil repertories in Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera in tandem. Most of them feature a duo performing consummate artistry and with emotive rapport, such as Writing the Petition from The Daughter of the Horse Trader, The Marriage Proposal from The Butterfly Dream, Stealing the Poem from The Story of the Jade Hairpin and The Dragon Teases the Phoenix.
The cast encompasses three generations of actors , including winners of the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre Tang Yuen - ha and Cai Zhengren, and the famous Kunqu laosheng (old male) Lu Yongchang. From beacons in performing arts, young talents from the Shandong Peking Opera Theatre, to a new generation of Peking and Kunqu Opera actors trained by Jingkun Theatre, they will bring a new and refreshing perspective of the two genres in Chinese opera as reflected in the title, as ‘chrysanthemum’ is commonly used to represent Peking Opera , and ‘orchids’, Kunqu Opera.