Yet watching Peking Opera Les Miserables has surprised many. "At the beginning, I felt the foreign costume was very awkward. But the awkwardness gradually drifted away as I was drawn into the story. I was totally touched by the plot in the second half of the drama," said Ji Zhenhua, a well-known Kunqu Opera actor. Kunqu Opera, the oldest form of Chinese folk opera with a history of 600 years, is regarded as the "mother" of many folk operas, including Peking Opera.

"This new production has found a perfect combination of Eastern and Western culture," said German composer Karsten Guanderman, who came to China to study composition of Peking Opera music in the 1990s.

The exciting news for the cast and crew is that many young people who had never watched Peking Opera in a theatre before were in the audience. Chen Jing, a 28-year-old who works in a multinational company in Beijing, is one of them. Chen, who is a big fan of the musical Les Miserables, said, "I had never expected a Peking Opera performance to be so captivating and the plot is also loyal to the novel."

"We had the popularization of Peking Opera to young people in mind in creating this drama. We hope that young students that have no knowledge of folk operas could start to develop an interest in them," said Hao Yinbai, the playwright of the Peking Opera and Vice Dean of Literature Department of National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.

Generated discussion

Liu Honglei, a master degree student in cultural communication and administration of National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, is in charge of marketing for this show. He explained that they gave away free tickets to promote the show to a wider audience, particularly students. "We have achieved preset goals by winning enthusiastic reaction from the new segment of audience. Audience watched the show so attentively that they were upset by even a trivial disturbance during the show," said Liu Honglei.

Audience member Bai Wen is quite used to seeing Peking Opera shows in modern costume. Born in 1967, the second year of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Bai grew up watching "modern Peking Opera" in model plays, almost the only theatre performance available throughout the Cultural Revolution. All performers in these model plays-based on stories of revolutionary themes-were dressed in modern clothing. Bai said his interest in Peking Opera arose from his childhood experience of watching the "modernized Peking Operas." "Peking Opera Les Miserables has created a good vehicle for expressing emotions of Westerners in an Eastern way and succeeded in enriching the characters and I loved the show," said Bai.

Yet there has never been a more controversial Peking Opera staged. Peking Opera Les Miserables has stirred a full-scale discussion within the Peking Opera community over how the drama should inherit old heritages and reinvent itself. Peking Opera professionals, amateurs and academia have had fierce debates on where innovation of Peking Opera should be going. They agree that Les Miserables is a bold attempt at exploring some deep questions existing in the innovation of folk operas, such as those in selection of creative material, set design and acting.