Peony Garden is inspired by the Chinese traditional Kun Opera The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu.
The Peony Pavilion is a play written by Tang Xianzu in the Ming Dynasty and first performed in 1598 at the Pavilion of Prince Teng. One of Tang’s “Four Dreams,” it has traditionally been performed as Kunqu opera. It is the most popular play of the Ming dynasty. All Kun theatre troupes include it in their repertoire. The performance tradition has focused on the love story between Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei, but its original text also contains subplots pertaining to the falling Song Dynasty’s defense against the aggression of the Jin Dynasty. The two lovers can only meet through romantic dreams, while Liu Mengmei can only become Du Liniang’s husband by topping the list in the imperial examination.
The Peony Pavilion features highly refined characters and subtle lyrics that are hailed as a high point in Chinese literature. My favorite act is A Walk in the Garden:
It is the last days of the Southern Song Dynasty. On a fine Spring day, a maid persuades Du Liniang, the sixteen-year-old daughter of an important official, Du Bao, to take a walk in the garden, where she falls asleep. In Du Liniang’s dream she encounters a young scholar, Liu Mengmei, with whom she rapidly falls in love and to whom she wants to marry. In real life, however, she has never met him. Du Liniang’s dream is interrupted by a flower petal falling on her…
The highly refined lyrics aided by the newly developed Kun Opera weave a fabric of nuances and metaphors that elegantly pass between the nature and persona’s inner cosmos of emotions and desires. Through the performance of the opera, the story’s spirit shines through the lyrics with nuanced sensitivity and a persistent tone of youthful optimism. In Peony Garden, the performer uses four suspended Wiimote controllers that contain buttons and three-dimensional accelerometers to shape a reimagined restructuring of the essential elements of the original Kun Opera. Two phrases used in this composition are “不到园林怎知春色如许”(You never know how spring looks like if you don’t come to the garden); “踏草怕泥新绣袜，惜花疼煞小金玲” (Miss Jinling attempts to walk in the grass, afraid of the wet mud and dirtying her new knitted socks.)