Chinese opera builds cultural bridge to Europe's city of music
From：People's Daily OnlineAuthor： 2025-08-14 16:52
The tourist season in Vienna is in full swing, with a record-breaking number of Chinese tourists in evidence at the Golden Hall, Empress Sisi Museum at the Hofburg Palace and at Vienna's wonderful coffee houses. Two events however make this year extra special: "Waltz King" Johann Strauss' 200th birthday that's running concurrently with the Legendary Chinese Opera Festival 2025, held in the same hall that's home to the world-famous Vienna Boys' Choir.
According to Ernst Woller, recently retired president of the Vienna State Parliament and Honorary Chairman of the NGO International Culture Cooperation (ICC): "Music is a language that brings people from many cultures together. The Festival is the most important cultural exchange between China and Austria in recent years. The city of music, Vienna, is happy and proud to be the host."
When I first encountered Peking Opera in Beijing decades ago, I found it magical but incomprehensible yet over the years the magic and my understanding have grown stronger, so much so that I am planning to attend all Legendary Chinese Opera Festival 2025 performances of seven different historic Chinese operas including the three I've already recently experienced: Wu opera with a history of over four centuries from Zhejiang province of eastern coastal China (The Legend of the White Snake), Gui opera from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southwest China (Face like Peach Blossom) and most recently Kunqu opera with a history of 600 years from Kunshan city, east China's Jiangsu province (The Western Chamber).
Photo by Tong Wey Wey/International Culture Cooperations (ICC)
The Western Chamber follows commoner scholar Zhang and noblewoman Yingying who fall in love at a temple. When bandits threaten them, Zhang saves Yingying, only to face her mother's objections to their marriage because of social/economic class differences. With the help of Yingying's cunning maid, Hongniang, their love ultimately prevails. How refreshing in our challenging contemporary times to experience a story with a hopeful ending.
While the opera's theme of love defying societal expectations resonates universally, Western audiences especially appreciate stories where personal desire triumphs over rigid tradition. The opera's stress on individual agency, female empowerment, and romance rising above daunting obstacles reflects enduring values to which we can all relate. The compelling magic of this venerable art form, now becoming more widely known in the West with the rise of China and Chinese culture, conveys strong emotions that transcend continents and centuries.
My favorite opera, however, is upcoming next on August 23 and 24 from the Yue opera tradition that began in 1906: "The Butterfly Lovers", based on a much beloved Chinese folk tale about two ill-fated, star-crossed lovers and their eternal pursuit of love, freedom and human dignity. The legend not only inspired the Yue opera but my favorite piece of Chinese classical music "The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto" from 1959 and which was interestingly written by students He Zhanhao and Chen Gang and their colleagues at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the PRC.
The Legendary Chinese Opera Festival 2025 won't only be seen in Vienna but will be pan-European, travelling to please audiences in neighboring Croatia, Germany, Hungary and Italy.
Upcoming performances run until mid-November. They include operas from Yue, Yang, Xi and Huai opera. All are subtitled in English and German.
Aside from the operas themselves, the Festival not only includes performances but educational workshops. Some of these are about traditional costume design and aesthetics. If there had been a workshop on cosmetics, make up and symbolism, I would have been first in line because I find them exotic and compelling. And if I were a child, I would have been sitting in the first row of the children's workshop "Legendary Chinese Opera in the World of Lego"!
In addition to ICC, supporting organizations include the Austrian Journalist Club, China Opera Research Society of Beijing, Confucius Institute at the University of Vienna and the Art Development Center of the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
The Festival would have never happened without the dedication of so many enthusiastic talents, especially Ms. Yao Yao, ICC's Artistic Director, for whom this cross-cultural bridge building was seen as both a labor of love and a necessity in a challenging global environment.
For a few intense hours the enthusiastic audience and I were mentally transported both in distance and time to ancient China. As Austrian soprano Claudia Puhr enthused: "The West Chamber shimmered in the delicate colors of richly embroidered costumes whose cast members perfectly executed intricate movements and singing."
I hope others will be lucky enough to avail themselves of the same transformative experience here in the very heart of Europe.
Edit：董麗娜
The copyright of the article and the picture belongs to the original author. If there is any infringement, please contact to delete it