On Wednesday night, BLCU set up a night of music for the students. We took a bus down to the west side of Tian Tan in south Beijing. The traffic was a nightmare, but we made it in time for the show. Originally, I thought it was going to Beijing opera (京剧), which caused my enthusiasm to plummet faster than a rocket on re-entry. This is because Beijing opera usually lasts three hours (which is two hours too long) and usually causes me severe headaches after. This is due to the crashing symbols and high-pitched voices. As I untactfully told my first Chinese teacher, Beijing opera sounds to me like two cats in a bag.

This, fortunately, was not in that traditional and culturally important form. It was a mere hour and half long. The performance was simply beautiful to see. The costumes and sets were gorgeous and magical in their delicacy. Even better, the set was 3-D, with birds moving in the background. The opera singers’ voices, especially the lead soprano, took one to heights of love and despair. If you cannot tell, I enjoyed it.

The opera was named 神女, which is Chinese for goddess. The story is of a phoenix that falls in love with a man and he with her. Her mother, the Queen of the Phoenixes, and his father, the king, are mortal enemies. He keeps trying to hunt her, as he and his son are famous hunters. Eventually their love is found out, but they cannot remain apart as their parents demand. The humans and the phoenixes go to war, where an arrow from the father’s bow misses the Phoenix Queen and hits her daughter who was in the act of protecting her mother with her body. Great filial piety from that one. Anyway, she goes down and both sides realize that the girl is dead and her love is devastated. The arrow only hit her amulet, however, which freed a captive dragon. This saved her life and the dragon was a sign for peace. If the story seems familiar, it is Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending.