Heady mix of love, death, rebirth
The Peony Pavilion is a 16th-century Chinese drama about love, death, and resurrection, and arguably the most famous of all Kunqu operas written by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616).
In the drama, Du Liniang, the young daughter of a high official, meets the young scholar Liu Mengmei in a dream. The two have a tryst in a garden of peonies. Du awakens and pines for her phantasmal lover, then dies, leaving behind a self-portrait. Liu, happens to be a real person and through sheer accident ends up staying in Du's town. He discovers her painting, and falls in love with her.
Then the Underworld judge, moved by Du's beauty and her undying love, returns her to the mortal world. She appears to Liu as a ghost, and they again consummate their love. Liu digs her up, whereby her soul rejoins her body. They elope, and, after a number of trials - the bulk of which involves trying to convince her father that she is not a demon, and that her lover is not a grave robber - the emperor pardons all.
(China Daily 04/29/2008 page19)
