China National Peking Opera Company is coming to both the Liverpool Echo Arena Auditorium (13 to 15 November) and London’s Sadler’s Wells (19 to 22 November).
The company will be performing Warrior Women of Yang and the full-length European première of Farewell My Concubine. This is a rare opportunity to catch one of China's leading performing companies with two of its stars Yu Kuizhi and Li Shengsu.
The rarely seen spectacular Warrior Women of Yang is a story of grief, courage, patriotism and family loyalty with a cast of more than fifty, music, song, mime, stage combat and acrobatics.
Farewell My Concubine is a renowned classical piece, a harrowing story of political unrest, love, sacrifice and honour.
The Peking Opera is a unique art form. To achieve the highest level of performing skills often requires a lifelong dedication to practising the art. Most of the artists have to train from a very tender age at opera school before being an apprentice and learning from the masters.
Peking Opera represents the essence of traditional Chinese values: you must work hard through sweat and tears and resist material temptation if you wish to achieve anything.
In the climate of a largely westernised China, there are still artists who are passionate about the traditional form of Chinese artistic heritage and devote their lives to keeping this ancient century old Chinese art form alive and sharing its beauty and stagecraft with the world.
Ming Ming Dong and Kevin Zhang, directors of Sinolink Productions, said, “with respect and honour, we are taking the opportunity of 2015 UK and China Cultural Exchange Year to present this fine, traditional art form of Peking Opera to the world to demonstrate that China is not just about what they can manufacture, but also about what they can perform.
"We sincerely hope the British audience will appreciate and be inspired by the masterpieces that the National Peking Opera Company are to bring to the UK.”