Last December, after a dress rehearsal of the Peking Opera production Red Cliff, at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA), director Zhang Jigang was a bundle of nerves. He told his team he would not take the curtain call on stage after the debut the following night.

Based on a famous battle set in the Three Kingdoms (AD 220-280), Red Cliff's stage settings are a feast for the eyes.

It was his wife Zhang Lamei's comment that changed his mind. After watching the rehearsal that night, she told Zhang: "I enjoyed it. It actually felt like watching a blockbuster movie. I think audiences will love it."

The next night, the director showed up on stage after the premiere and took the packed audience's applause that rang on for more than 15 minutes.

Tickets for the 10 shows of the first run were all sold out and drew more than 20,000 people to watch the show. Both ordinary viewers and critics gave it two thumbs-up. And on March 16, a 45-minute highlight of the show was shown on the eight screens at the south end of New York's Times Square.

The epic play based on a famous battle set in the Three Kingdoms (AD 220-280) will have a second run at the NCPA from today to April 7.

Zhang was commissioned to direct the show to celebrate the first anniversary of NCPA last September when he was busy directing the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Paralympic Games. A month earlier, he had co-directed the highly-acclaimed Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics with Zhang Yimou.

Chen Ping, the sharp-eyed chairman of the NCPA, immediately decided to invite Zhang to revive the popular staple of the Peking Opera repertoire.

At first, Zhang was not very sure he was up to it.

"I did not really enjoy Peking Opera. I had attended some shows but often fell asleep. Also, I am a choreographer and was a total outsider to the Peking Opera genre," says Zhang.

He finally agreed and cites two reasons for his decision: "I wished to do my bit to help revive the old art form; and I wanted to do a play for my mother."

Zhang's mother is an ordinary housewife born and raised in the countryside of North China's Shanxi province. She has no formal education but has loved folk operas all her life. Zhang remembers that when he was a little boy his mother would carry him on the back and work in the fields, all the while singing the local opera arias. Even today, the 93-year-old still keeps fit with a regimen of morning exercises.

Peking Opera was very popular in China in the early 20th century. The big cities like Shanghai and Beijing had hundreds of theaters which saw packed audiences every night. As the actors performed on stage, the spectators shook their heads and hummed the tunes, to express their enjoyment.

"But those days have gone. While Peking Opera artists are trying their best to revive interest, I don't think they are on the right track," he says.

"They are borrowing elements from other genres, with the women dancing at the back and the lead actors doing the singing. This does not work."

So when he called the first meeting to discuss the show, his first dictum was: "Don't borrow anything from dances, musicals or variety shows. Go back to the rich history of Peking Opera itself, brush the dust off the old treasure and discover the real gold."

And to Zhang, "the real gold" is simplicity, symbolism and exaggeration. Showing the actor holding a whip is enough to indicate he is galloping on a horse; a few soldiers on stage can represent an entire army; an actor circling the stage suggests a long journey. Often, the only props on stage are a table and two chairs. Many situations are meant to be understood from the performances.

"Peking Opera is really the art of imagination. So I have tried to come up with a romantic, dream-like production," he says.

"The older generation used to say 'go to listen to a Peking Opera'. I hope audiences will listen while watching. So I want to make sure every scene is a feast for the eyes."

Zhang has definitely succeeded. Like his wife, many others too have said the show gives them a feeling of sitting through a blockbuster film and want to know what high-tech methods were used in the production.

Actually there is nothing high-tech, explains Zhang, revealing that his team just makes clever use of the stage.

Zhang also keeps up the pace of the 140-minute play, striking a balance between the fight scenes and the singing.

This appeals to viewers such as Lu Ni, a 27-year-old secretary who watched the play last December. She says: "In the Peking Opera productions I saw before, the actors sing like for some 20 minutes just for the sake of singing. But in this play, I feel all the arias support the plot and characterization."

(China Daily March 30, 2009)