In a fit of jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of "The Moon Opera", disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, "The Moon Opera" is restaged, under the patronage of a rich local factory boss who insists that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang'e. So she does, this time believing she is the immortal moon goddess. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Peking Opera, this devastating portrait shows the extent to which a desperate woman will embrace an exalted image of herself in an effort to flee earthly concerns.
Author(s): Bi Feiyu (Author), Howard Goldblatt (Translator), Sylvia Li-Chun Lin (Translator)
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Edition: First Edition
Language: English
Print length: 117 pages
ISBN-10: 0151012946
ISBN-13: 9780151012947
Book Description
The debut novel of one of Chinas rising young literary talentsa gem of a book that takes a piercing look into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching.
Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Change. So she does, this time believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess.
Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera,The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu, one of Chinas young literary stars, re-creates all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over in this gem of a novel.
*Starred Review* This slender novel on a rather narrow topic nevertheless resonates with a clear, crystalline bell tone. The Chinese author, in his first novel, brings his admirably, even stunningly, precise and effortlessly metaphoric style to bear (“That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind”) on one aspect of Chinese culture that has transcended the change in regimes over the centuries: the Peking opera. As we, in fascination, observe here, the Peking opera is a tightly ritualized, tradition-bound art form, and the more nuanced and subtle the performance, the more highly regarded the performer. The novel’s conceit is that a wealthy factory owner is prepared to endow a new production of The Moon Opera, which has not been performed for two decades; however, the factory owner’s stipulation is that the production must star the lead female singer who performed it previously. She, though, has essentially retired from the stage and is now a singing teacher. The story, then, becomes the story of this prima donna’s attempt to recapture the role and her former fame, and what she learns about her true legacy to the Peking opera. At once a sad and lovely story. --Brad Hooper
From the Inside Flap
In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang e. So she does, this time ultimately believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess. Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu takes a piercing look at all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over, resulting in a beautiful novel by one of China s young literary stars.
From the Back Cover
Praise for The Moon Opera:
"What a gem of a novel! Bi Feiyu gives us a glimpse not only into the Chinese opera world but deep into a woman's heart. I hope this is the first of many of Bi's works to come to us in translation." -- Lisa See, author of Peony in Love
"This tiny, perfect novel concerns the hermetic world of traditional Peking Opera.... There are distant echoes of All About Eve ? the young goddess must always usurp the old." -- The Times (London)
About the Author
BI FEIYU is one of the most respected authors and screenwriters in China. He was born in 1964 in Xinghua, in the province of Jiangsu. A journalist and poet as well as a prize-winning novelist, he cowrote the film Shanghai Triad, directed by the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
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