Feature: Year of China-UK Culture Exchange: wonderful Jiangsu meets Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- During a two-day event of "Wonderful Jiangsu Meets Cambridge" from Oct 5 to 6, the first international digital museum of 600-year-old Chinese Kunqu Opera was launched.

The first bi-lingual digital Chinese Kunqu Opera museum would include digital images of comprehensive objects and papers about Kunqu Opera that are collected from museums, libraries and archives from both China and Britain.

Ten top Chinese Kunqu Opera artists from Kunqu Opera House of Jiangsu Performing Arts Group (China) have also been invited to Cambridge to give lectures and performances to the students and local residents during the event.

Rob Wallach, Vice Provost of King's College told Xinhua Monday evening, this was the first time he watched live Kunqu Opera, and he thought the artists' performance were wonderful and was glad such traditional and ancient Chinese performance could be held at King's College in the Year of China-UK Culture Exchange.

Li Hongliang, leading Kunqu Opera performing artist, who has been performing Kunqu Opera for 38 years, said it was a great opportunity to show that China not only has tea and Qipao (cheongsam), it also has ancient but vigorous arts, such as Kunqu Opera, to audience across the world.

Kunqu Opera, or Kunju Opera, is one of the extant oldest types of opera in China. It originated and became popular in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province at the end of Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the beginning of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Kunqu Opera was listed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2001.