Japan's ballet troupe coming to China with The White-Haired Girl

In 1945, The White-Haired Girl premiered in Yan'an, a revolutionary base in Northwest China, as an original Chinese opera, causing a sensation.

Since then it has been staged many times as one of the country's most successful operas and has been adapted for the stage, cinema and TV. But it's little known that Japan's Matsuyama Ballet Troupe is perhaps the world's first ballet company to adapt the Chinese story. Its ballet The White-Haired Girl premiered in Tokyo in 1955 and was staged in China in 1958.

During the past decades, the troupe has visited and performed in China. In May, it will perform the ballet in Beijing and Shanghai, which will be the troupe's 15th tour in China.