A new Chinese opera called Shangri-La, based on a popular ancient Tibetan legend, is expected to premiere in the China Children's Art Theater (CCAT) on October 25.
The opera has been devised and produced by CCAT, which will perform it at a cost of over 3 million yuan (US$360,000).
Shangri-La first came to the world's attention in 1933 in the book Lost Horizon by English writer James Hilton, as a wonderland where local people lived a happy, contented and peaceful idyllic life.
But a long time before Hilton's book, Shangri-La had been created in an ancient Tibetan kingdom in Diqing County in southwest China's Yunnan province.
The story mainly tells of the trials and tribulations of a good-natured people in their pursuit of the holy realm of Shangri-La.
According to CCAT president Ouyang Yibing, the opera has integrated a unique ethnic Tibetan flavor with modern artistic methods to affect a strong poetic effect.
The setting is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the gorgeous costumes are borrowed from typical Tibetan traditional dress, with110 hand-made suits designed for 34 performers, who will shoot arrows and "fly" on stage.
The name Shangri-La meant great harmony among people, nature, and the spiritual and material worlds, Ouyang Yibing said. The opera was expected to make the audience ponder deeply over the nature of reality.
(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2002)
