25 March 2019
The 2019 graduation production The Legend of the White Snake of the Shanghai Theatre Academy College of Traditional Chinese Opera was staged at the Experimental Theatre of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) on the evening of 22 March.
This play was created by the famous playwright Mr Tian Han in 1943 and won the National Traditional Chinese Opera Performance Award in 1952. It has been well-known throughout the country ever since. For decades, with so many versions of various schools, it has been one of the longest lasting and most welcomed plays in Chinese theatre, thus making it one of the classics handed down from generation to generation.
This version of the “Legend of the White Snake” is a graduation production tailor-made for the students of BA Performance (Peking Opera, Music for Traditional Chinese Opera) 2019 of the STA College of Traditional Chinese Opera. The STA College of Traditional Chinese Opera has always shouldered the mission of cultivating talents and inheriting classic, following aims of combining major-specific teaching with stage practice. During the seven-month-long teaching and rehearsal process, with the care and support of the STA leaders, the production team comprising of 16 teachers of relevant specialties, 26 creative personnel behind the scenes and 80 students in the cast and band totaling 122 people, worked together in the theatre to continuously explore and refine the production. In the rehearsals, teachers and students worked together to interpret the script and shape the characters, immersing themselves in the inheritance and creation of art.
The most distinctive feature of the graduation production Legend of the White Snake is that it takes advantage of the regional culture of Shanghai, combining Peking Opera with Kun Opera in a natural way and thus achieving the richness of art. This performance was a visual and audio-feast feast. The performance was completed successfully, and the graduates of Year 2019, as a fresh force, will show themselves on a larger stage in the future, winning glory for STA and injecting fresh blood into the inheritance of traditional Chinese opera.
After the performance, STA leaders and industry experts came to the stage to meet and express their greetings to the performers. President of STA Huang Changyong and Deputy Party Secretary of STA Zhou Yin’e delivered speeches, in which they thanked the teachers for their efforts and congratulated the students on their achievements. They expressed the hope that the STA College of Traditional Chinese Opera will continue to keep the good momentum of development, make further plans for its development in the next stage, and cultivate outstanding reserve talents for traditional Chinese opera.
