Opera fights tough battle for shrinking attention spans

Legend of the Golden Magpie is a new entry in The Original State Version series, initiated by Zhang and Shao in April 2016. The series consists of four dramas; in each Shao has the leading role and Zhang directs.

The name of this series comes from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, meaning no matter how things change, they eventually return to their natural state. The aim of the series is to trace the style of Kunqu Opera through the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as attract new audiences.

"Some friends and I were talking about opera and how difficult it is these days to distinguish between the Kunqu form and the Peking form in terms of makeup and costumes," Shao said.

"We were keen to explore what Kunqu Opera looked like hundreds of years ago, and to let our audiences see what that was."

She consulted staff members at the Palace Museum in Beijing and was given access to archives, a search that turned up pictures painted in the Ming and Qing dynasties that would literally change the face of The Original State Version. Shao discovered in those early days a feature of opera actors' makeup was small, delicate lips and thin eyebrows. This style was adopted for the series and has become one of its key characteristics.

Another distinctive feature of the series is all the dramas are no longer than 100 minutes, whereas most traditional pieces last two and half hours.

"People, especially the young, lead fast-paced lives," Shao said. "For those who have never seen Kunqu Opera, two and half hours is a long time to spend in a theater, let alone understand what's going on in the performance. But most movies last about 100 minutes, so I think they can take that."