Opera inspired by ancient Tongguan porcelain jar

A dance opera by artists from Changsha will be staged in Paris on Aug 28 and 29, as a part of a Hunan cultural festival in France.

The opera, I Was Not When You Were Born, draws inspiration from an anonymous Tang Dynasty (618-907) poem inscribed on a porcelain jar:

I was not when you were born.

You were old when I was born...

I wished to have been born together

We could enjoy our time together...

The two-hour opera is a love story between a silk-washing maiden and the owner of a porcelain kiln.

"We were inspired by the poem on a porcelain vase made at the Tongguan kiln," said Guo Beibei, the director of the opera.

Tongguan was a renowned kiln site in Changsha, which produced some of the nation's best porcelain items during the Tang and Song (960-1279) dynasties.

Zhang Xiangtao, the head of the publicity department of the Changsha committee of the Communist Party of China, said the opera is a vehicle for promoting the long and profound culture of the city and the province in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative.

According to historical records, Tongguan porcelain products were sold to more than 29 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Europe via the renowned Maritime Silk Road as early as the Tang Dynasty.

In 1998, a group of German explorers salvaged a sunken ship near Pulau Belitung Island in Indonesia. More than 60,000 porcelain items were found in the ship, including 50,000 made at Tongguan.

The inscription of the famous Tang poem was also discovered on a porcelain ware in the ship.

"After more than 1,000 years, we hope to use this opera to reflect the glorious history of Tongguan and to describe the culture and humanity that are associated with the Maritime Silk Road," Guo said.

zhaoshijun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 08/26/2016 page15)