Inscribing the Stage: The Textualisation of Peking Opera Performance

Recently, over the course of a month in Taipei, I took in twenty-five opera performances, each opening a window onto the vast and varied world of Chinese opera.¹ The performances were drawn from different genres: Peking opera (both canonical repertoire and new works), Taiwanese opera (kua-á-hì, or gezaixi), Hakka opera, Beiguan opera, Kunqu opera, Yu opera (Henan opera) and glove puppet opera (pòo-tē-hì). Although I was well aware of Taiwan’s vibrant operatic and theatrical scene – indeed, it was the very reason I pursued this residency – I was nonetheless surprised by the volume, variety and vitality of the performances I experienced. My visit coincided with one of the peak periods in the ritual calendar (the third lunar month), during which one could easily choose from more than ten outdoor opera performances each day, held at various temples throughout the greater Taipei area. In addition, meticulously crafted and lavishly mounted productions were featured at formal venues such as the Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center and Dadaocheng Theater. The performing culture of Chinese opera in Taiwan nowadays remains vibrant, imaginative, colourful and remarkably robust.

Indeed, the contemporary Chinese opera scene is dynamic, constantly renewed by a broad spectrum of innovations ranging from subtle refinements to bold reinventions; the Peking opera genre is no exception. A case in point is the GuoGuang Opera Company’s premiere of Jing Wei (2025), written by artistic director Wang An-chi. As Taiwan’s primary state-sponsored Peking opera troupe, GuoGuang – now entering its fourth decade – is well regarded for its performances of canonical works. For example, in 2015, to mark its twentieth anniversary, the company staged sixteen canonic operas over two months, showcasing its command of the traditional repertoire that continued to be enjoyed by opera enthusiasts. Many classics were among the twenty-two operas performed for the company’s thirtieth anniversary in 2025. At the same time, GuoGuang is well known for its deliberate reimagining of Peking opera. They produced more than forty new operas between 1996 and 2019. The company’s innovations include original operas centred on contemporary themes, a gender-balanced sensibility and nuanced interpretations of historical events, as well as phantasmagoric stage effects and digital avatars that simulate live performers. The company has also expanded its thematic range, engaging contemporary and historical subjects, as seen in Jing Wei, a collaboration with a modern-style Hung Dance Troupe. This work centres on Wang Jingwei, a controversial figure condemned as a traitor for leading a collaborationist government under Imperial Japan in 1940, but praised by some for his tactical efforts to delay Japanese imperialism. GuoGuang remains anchored in the fundamental expressive means of Peking opera – namely, singing, speech, gesture and movement – established since the late Qing dynasty. Meanwhile, it has reconfigured these elements to generate new aesthetics, effecting paradigm shifts in the genre.²

GuoGuang’s impulse toward innovation is shared by other leading Peking opera artists in Taiwan, notably the virtuosic actress Wei Hai-min. In her recent premiere of The Queen With No Name (2025), Wei and director Wang Chia-ming drew on postmodern dramaturgy, blending conventions from Peking and Kunqu opera with stylistic elements borrowed from musical theatre and contemporary performance practices. The protagonist, Empress Dowager Cixi, is portrayed with tantalising complexity – as ruler, exile, mother and connoisseur – whose image blurs the lines between history and imagination, politics and domesticity, memory and dream.

Another opera visionary is Wu Hsing-kuo, the esteemed actor known for his experimental and genre-defying work. Wu’s one-man performance of King Lear in Peking opera style, a collaboration with French director Ariane Mnouchkine, has been embraced by audiences worldwide since its premiere in 1998. His awe-inspiring soliloquy in the prologue of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor (2007), a commission of the Metropolitan Opera House, marked a brilliant historic debut of Chinese opera performance on the Met stage, captivating audiences and earning critical acclaim as a landmark moment.³ Wu founded the Contemporary Legend Theatre in 1986, which has been dedicated to integrating Peking opera with modern theatre, creating a distinctive art form that bridges classical tradition and contemporary stagecraft and sensibility.

The integrated art form is a recurring theme in the Chinese opera scene. Many troupes of Taiwanese opera have sustained connection to their grassroots origins, playing essential roles in ritual and auspicious performances and serving as vessels of tradition, as well as engaging audiences with a hybrid form known as opeila (or opela), which brings traditional opera melodies together with popular songs, elements of Japanese samurai films, jazz drum kits, flamboyant costumes and disco lights – continually evolving in style and presentation. Some performances are grounded in written scripts and established texts. Others, particularly those in the temple-contract performing circuit, rely heavily on oral conventions and improvisatory musical practices.⁴ The latter demands much agile stage presence for unscripted stories, and continues to be an important part of Taiwanese opera today. Together, these performing approaches reflect the adaptability of the opera genre in Taiwan’s vital cultural landscape.⁵

From a month steeped in opera in Taipei, what unfolded for me was an intimate experience of operatic culture in the Sinophone world – a living, breathing art form, resilient and ever-evolving, attuned in countless ways to the rhythms of change. Far from being static, the opera scene continues to demonstrate an immense capacity for reinvention. It operates on several registers: an apparatus for ritual offerings, a forum for traditional performing arts, and a space for theatrical experiments. Its vitality lies in the ability to sustain traditional forms while assimilating varied sensibilities, technologies and narrative structures. In this way, it remains relevant in a rapidly shifting social and cultural landscape.

English-language scholarship is still in the process of adequately accounting for Chinese opera’s multifaceted and dynamic nature.⁶ The book under review here is a welcome addition to the literature. It turns our attention to a central phase in the history of Peking opera – the late Qing and early Republican eras (1820s–1910s) – during which the genre’s stylistic parameters and performing conventions became codified. David Rolston contributes to the study of this critical period with an 800-page tome. He centres his comprehensive study on a collection of playscripts called Xikao (Research into Plays), the first modern textualisation of Peking opera. Rolston’s book tells the story of the increasing textualisation and accompanying fixity of Peking opera performances. To understand why the publication of Xikao was a significant event, it is important to note that, prior to the twentieth century, Peking opera playscripts were adaptations of northern popular opera traditions, realised through collective endeavours of anonymous playwrights and performers.

The informal and collaborative processes of publishing Xikao led to the creation of master playscripts, which often circulated only in the parts for individual characters rather than in complete scripts. The late Qing dynasty saw the rise of collaboration between literati and actors in the Peking opera tradition. Opera scripts were developed by and for actors, such that the existence of the written form largely derived from the performance practice.⁷ These opera playscripts, whether transmitted orally or through written versions, were often fragmentary, leaving a lot of filling in for the performers (with years of training) to do.

Forty volumes of pocket-size paperback playscripts called Xikao were published between 1912 and 1925 in Shanghai with new printing technology standards for the contemporary mass production of magazines. It was an important textualisation of Peking opera. Each volume begins with ten pages of photographs, followed by commentary and playscripts for 10–20 opera titles, totalling around 150 pages. They were mainly transcriptions created during performance, or reconstructions after performances. Some were acquired from performers’ collections of private scripts. The script contains continuous dialogues, stage directions and music tune types in shorthand annotation. Xikao was rapidly mass-produced to satisfy overwhelming demand – selling 12,000 copies of its first volume within one month. The second volume went into its fourth printing within the month of its release, October 1913. Xikao encompasses traditional repertoire as well as newer titles. These volumes were widely consulted by audiences, amateur performers and professional performers alike. Xikao held a significant place in the cultural life of its time. As a prominent collection of textualisation of Peking opera, its reprints were issued as compilations in Taipei in 1983 and Shanghai in 1990.

Rolston was trained in Classical Chinese fiction. However, Peking opera became his life’s work. His thorough engagement since the 1980s with Peking opera – from working experience and collaboration with national opera schools and troupes in Taipei, Nanjing and Beijing – has given him an encyclopaedic command of the genre. His passion for Peking opera is palpable. Rolston’s comprehensive footnotes devour the pages, incorporating perspectives from codicology, bibliography and textual criticism. Amidst the detailed discussion, the author frequently offers a generous helping of explanations of the language, customs and cultural context for the Peking opera neophyte. Patient readers are rewarded with a rich and accessible introduction to many of the foundational elements of Peking opera as a theatrical art form. Even at 800 pages, the text remains focused on Rolston’s core concerns, namely stories of textualisation, leaving other aspects of performance – such as the music, stories and nature of the performances themselves – largely unaddressed.

Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera is divided into six chapters with an Introduction, Epilogue and an extensive Appendix. The Introduction has two sections. The first provides an account of the origins and transformation of Peking opera, tracing from its earlier forms (troupes travelling from Anhui and Wuhan to Beijing in the early nineteenth century) to its present manifestations. Rolston examines key aspects of this trajectory, noting linguistic variations, tune types, instrumental accompaniment, and the significance of different performance hubs (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Hankou). He discusses both how regional genres converged in Beijing that constituted Peking opera, and the role of imperial patronage. The author insists on the term ‘jingju’ (meaning ‘drama of the capital Beijing’) instead of ‘Peking opera’, as both ‘Peking’ and ‘opera’ betray Western bias in his opinion. His discussion of the opera’s significance in Shanghai and the interaction of actors, literati, patrons, mobsters and producers makes for an engaging survey. The performance traditions established during Shanghai’s ‘golden age’ (1912–30) contribute to contemporary practices and the canonical repertoire. The second part of the Introduction considers how Peking opera has been disseminated and appreciated by diverse audiences. It is a whirlwind tour through the reception of Peking opera, from the rarefied level of national political ideology to the least edifying form of commercial popularisation.

Chapter 1 offers an overview of the textual role of playscript manuscripts in Peking opera prior to Xikao. These anonymous playscripts were passed around among troupes, although transmission among professional actors was still mainly oral, and substantial discrepancies persisted between script and performance in practice. In addition to being exhaustive, the footnotes offer illuminating discussions of a variety of playscripts and role types. Rolston’s synthesis of textual, performative and historical perspectives makes this chapter an effective introduction to the fundamental concepts of Peking opera, particularly its extended taxonomy of repertoire, role types and costuming conventions. For example, after noting the conventional division of civil and military plays, Rolston introduces classifications he devises based on criteria such as costuming. As for role-type system, he identifies a set of variables – such as gender, age, social status, vocal type, diction, movement, makeup and beard style – that informs how roles are differentiated and performed. He provides insights into the structural and aesthetic logic of the operatic tradition. In one illuminating discussion about Peking opera’s role-type system, where actors specialise in particular role-types, Rolston problematises the Western assumption that such systems are primitive relics, inferior to modern ideals of individualism. While role types undoubtedly shape how characters are created and perceived on stage, he argues, they are not mere stereotypes. Instead, role types help actors define essential traits and distinguish their particular roles through subtle variation and nuanced interpretation.

Chapter 2 traces the textualisation of Chinese theatre before Xikao, dating the history of classic drama back to the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) with zaju, exemplified by playwrights like Guan Hanqing (1241–1320). Over time, zaju ceased to be performed and came to be written and read as literary works. Kunqu emerged in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) as a scripted form of Chinese theatre, authored by accomplished playwrights such as Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), author of The Peony Pavilion (1598). From the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, amateurs began collecting scripts, which supported domestic performances and reading.⁸ Anthologies of Kunqu plays such as A Patched Cloak of White Fur provided a model for what Xikao would ultimately become.⁹ The chapter also explores the diverse career paths that could lead one to become a playwright – from actors who became playwrights, to literati who became actors before turning to playwriting, to authors who collaborated with renowned performers to craft scripts. The phenomenon of prominent literati turning their attention to Peking opera, however, was a process independent of the development of Xikao, and is discussed in Chapter 5.

Chapter 3 is devoted entirely to Xikao. It details the production history of these publications, including their scope, content, photos, circulation, usage, social network, sources and advertisement. The first section addresses the history of Xikao’s publishing and dissemination, whose immense popularity yielded many spinoffs, reprints and imitators. Xikao versions are still treated as authoritative texts, providing a basis for productions and scholarly studies. There was no master plan for the publication of these forty volumes of playscripts. Xikao did not originate as a monumental scholarly compilation; instead, it began as a series of popular newspaper columns – over 209 entries on 207 plays published over eleven months in the prominent Shanghai newspaper Shenbao. This journalistic origin gave rise to the distinctive, erudite yet breezy introductions and commentaries – a notable feature absent from earlier playscript manuscripts. These additions lent the publication of Xikao a fresh sense of cultural cachet. As the playscripts were collected in an ad hoc manner, some titles in earlier volumes reappeared in later ones when different versions of the same play became available. The operas encompassed a wide range of topics, from traditional stories to contemporary events, from social criticism to romantic or even sensational narratives with sexual innuendo, from the critique of fashionable ‘freedom’ to either critique of or support for women’s liberation.

Rolston meticulously uncoils the tangled web that comprised publishers, newspaper editors, compilers, literary magazines, professional and amateur actors, critics and theatres. Xikao’s improvisatory publication history resisted a linear trajectory due to competing interests and the many tangents that shaped its development. In many ways, the inscription of Peking opera performance in Xikao constituted a textual snapshot of the performance during the particular historical period of the early Republic. Thus, Xikao was not unlike the phonograph recordings that emerged rapidly during the same period, whereby the actors’ performances were inscribed in the grooves as sound waves. In fact, scholar Sai-Shing Yung considers the rise of the phonograph as ‘a third mode’ of Chinese opera, along with staged performance and textualisation in playscripts.¹⁰ According to Yung, new media and new modes of production brought with them corresponding commercial and cultural institutions, whose operations, in turn, shaped the ways in which the opera was produced, disseminated and received.

In his ample footnotes Rolston provides vivid illustration in detailing ways in which Xikao was used in everyday life. Four footnotes are particularly effective in breathing life into the role of Xikao as they draw our attention to its materiality. Each sheds light on specific types of interactions with the mass-produced Xikao. Guo Guangjia, who began his sojourn in Japan as a child worker and later a restaurateur, noted in his memoir that while he was ‘in Japan and unable to go see Jingju [Peking opera], he would read play after play in Xikao’.¹¹ Brought overseas, the pocket-size Xikao enabled opera-loving sojourners to remain entranced by ‘performance’ as part of an imagined listening community.

A contemporary described the Peking opera theatre scene in 1914: ‘There are play fanatics who, whenever they are in the theatre, hold in their hand a volume, and half open it and half incline their ears [to the listening]’.¹² This depiction captured the rise of fashionable listening culture, wherein theatre-goers combined reading, listening and watching opera into an embodied enjoyment of live performance. A reference to Li Jinhui, the father of Chinese popular music, reads ‘Li Jinhui once also became enamoured of xiqu [Chinese opera]. He would spend the entire morning copying the play program for the day and looking up the playscripts in Xikao, which he would take as a “textbook” from the first play to the last one.’¹³ As a reference source, Xikao was significant to Li’s immersion in the opera genre, which undoubtedly contributed to his prolific creative œuvre, from beloved children’s operas such as The Grape Fairy (1922) to a wealth of popular songs in the 1930s.¹⁴ Another reference notes the use of Xikao in the early cultural work of the Chinese Communist Party: ‘In Mao Zedong’s library at Yan’an, he had several tens of installments of Xikao that were constantly borrowed by the theater people there and were eventually given to them for their use.’¹⁵ Thus, though it began as the Communist Party leader’s private possession in Yan’an, the birthplace of the communist revolution, Xikao soon became collective property, studied by comrades to facilitate the creation of revolutionary drama. These vivid examples show a wide range of how people engaged with Xikao, expanding our understanding of its potential as a historical and social agent.

Many scholars have attributed the publication of Xikao, which took place in Shanghai rather than Beijing, to the need of people in Shanghai to be acquainted with this transplanted art form, whose dialect differed from their native Shanghainese. But Shanghai was also a prosperous city known for its modernity and cosmopolitanism and for espousing new fashion and contemporary culture. In an insightful essay on the cultural status of Xikao, scholar Matsuura Tsuneo notes that, more than playscripts, it was a ‘new cultural device’.¹⁶ Placing it within the context of larger entertainment publications of the time, Tsuneo draws attention to the books’ physical production: Xikao was equipped with a new form of book cover with modern visual designs (a significant break from the conventional thread-bound playscripts), the inclusion of photographs of performers, and commentaries that espoused the new discourse of theatre criticism and narrative style. The publication was actively promoted through extensive advertising in newspapers and magazines. In metropolitan Shanghai, amid a surge in publishing to meet the growing demand for entertainment, Xikao entered the scene as a cultural device set to join the blossoming wave of popular magazines devoted to fiction, theatre, arts, music and leisure, inviting a burgeoning readership to partake in Peking opera enjoyment and help shape the unfolding experience of modern life as the new culture of the early Republican Era.

Chapter 4 explores censorship in Peking opera. Although censorship of Peking opera had existed during the Qing dynasty, the publication of Xikao provided concrete assistance in screening and ensuring compliance. Amid the turbulent political transformations of twentieth-century China, Peking opera was subjected to repeated censorship tied to different regimes, ideologies and state structures, highlighting the art form’s dynamic relationship with society. Rolston’s comprehensive overview of the censorship imposed on Peking opera considers the genre’s shifting contours under a range of political regimes, from the Qing dynasty and the early Republican Era, through the warlord period (1916–28), the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (1921–49) and many of its ensuing political movements, and the Republic of China after its retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Pointing to censorship’s controlling grip on cultural expression, and its shifting, dynamic force rather than a permanent state, Rolston highlights GuoGuang Company’s production in 2006 of ten Peking opera titles banned in Taiwan until the lifting of Martial Law in 1987.

Chapter 5 takes up a discussion that began in Chapter 2. Named authorship became more possible and viable once the publication of playscripts emerged as the norm. Literati and playwrights working with actors could develop their own following. The chapter studies the biographies of two famous playwrights, focusing on their careers and views of play writing rather than their plays. Chen Moxiang (1884–1942) belonged to many of the ‘brain trusts’ and intellectual entourages that surrounded famous actors. Weng Ouhong (1908–94) was a professional playwright who acted in and directed plays, organised and managed theatre troupes. He contributed significantly to operatic educational reform. One of the plays he authored in 1940 with the famous actor, Cheng Yanqiu, The Unicorn Purse (aka The Jewelry Purse), has become a standard and enduring favourite in Peking opera. Later, Weng also became one of the playwrights and arrangers for The Red Lantern (1964), one of the eight model operas during the Cultural Revolution, which continues to be performed to this day.

Chapter 6 addresses new forms of publication in Peking opera. Rolston considers a great many varieties in the print medium, including anthologies, palace collections, scripts in periodicals and single playscripts published as books or books with extensive stage photos. The proliferation of different formats of textualisation includes audio recordings, DVDs, photos, YouTube, live-streaming and even video games. They have opened the field to a multiplicity of perspectives on the interpretation and performance of Peking opera. Rolston also notes the effort to obtain global reach with the beautifully produced book series, English Translation Series of a Hundred Peking Opera Classics. ¹⁷ Many of these new formats and platforms work to decentre the significance of Xikao, providing an opening to a greater variety of dialogues and conversations.

Rolston’s appendix is especially valuable for its careful cross-referencing of the various titles used for the same plays in Xikao. The thirty-page Appendix catalogues over 500 plays with over 1,100 alternative titles. Due to flexible naming practices in Peking opera, titles could appear in full or abbreviated form, be modified for auspicious occasions, be adapted to circumvent censorship, or be renamed to replace older versions. As a result, different titles may refer to the same play. Rolston lists play titles, cross-referencing their alternative names and appearances in reprints – a testament to his remarkable dedication. This index was especially useful before the recent advent of a website dedicated to Xikao. ¹⁸ It remains valuable today, particularly given that digitised pdf versions of the first thirty volumes of the original Xikao are now accessible through the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo.¹⁹

It is worth seeking out the original volumes of Xikao, even in digitised form. Exploring the volumes themselves, particularly their visuality, could be rewarding because they captured the period’s flavour and served as important visual evidence of innovations. The photographs included in the first ten pages of each Xikao volume consist primarily of performers, occasionally playwrights, and amateurs. Collectively, they offer insights into dimensions of performance culture. These photographs were omitted in later reprinted compilations, reflecting an overreliance on textual sources to render a canonic text enshrined in timelessness. However, the photographs were central to Xikao as a cultural device in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and their promised presence in advertisements served as a key appeal. Typically in studio portraits or publicity stills, these images offer an intimate glimpse into styles of operatic costuming – many unexpectedly modern and sleek. The photos of performers capture their commanding gazes, visual aesthetics, codified gestures and postures, and even expressions of self-regard. These photographs helped position Xikao as a stylish and culturally relevant magazine for contemporary readers. They captured the era’s nascent cultural trends – actresses newly rising to stardom, actors exuding dapper sophistication and staging defined by chic, modern design. To twenty-first-century readers, the visual presentation preserves significantly the innovative spirit of Peking opera performance during the Republican Era, a vitality that had become muted with time.

Meanwhile, however, the success in textualisation of Peking opera has entailed a loss. Textualisation and its accompanying fixity diminished the flexibility of the theatrical performance. The text inevitably distances the performance from the oral tradition from which it draws. In other words, the written version standardises the repertoire and performance, which leads to repetition and sameness. Rolston laments the loss of ‘the excitement generated in live performances by great actors of the past based on their purposely stimulating each other to perform the same piece in different ways’.²⁰ Indeed, as scholar Hai Zhen notes, ‘Traditional Jingju is an actor’s art, and it is a stage performance with the actor’s body as the carrier’, emphasising the significance of the transient yet essential nature of performance to the genre.²¹ Both scripts and music could be performatively fluid and extemporaneous. A testament to this flexibility is the transcription of eleven versions of an aria by Mei Lanfang, recorded in Western stave notation by a music scholar Liu Tianhua before Mei’s famous 1930 US tour – a reflection of the fluid performance practices typical of the early Republican Era.²² Rolston addresses the dilemma of ‘textual fixity’ at the end of the book. On the one hand, such fixity reduces the dynamic and adaptive nature of Peking opera performance through performers’ growing reliance on fixed lyrics, and on the other hand, it granted us an ‘amazing level of access to former and contemporary textualizations’ of Peking opera.²³

The notion of textualisation and the inevitable consequence of fixity and loss of flexibility are significant to the ongoing conversation on issues surrounding the work concept.²⁴ It is instructive to consider Hai Zhen’s discussion about the central role of huokou in Peking opera performance.²⁵ The literal translation of the Chinese characters for the term is ‘living’ and ‘orality’. The term’s meaning encompasses broader connotations of being extemporaneous and improvisational.

Traditional Peking opera is a performer-centered theatrical form whose artistic transmission does not rely on written scripts or musical scores. Instead, the foundation of singing and performance in traditional Peking Opera lies in the memorization of vocal patterns and spoken lines. Because it does not depend on written scripts or scores, performers and accompanying musicians often serve not only as singers and instrumentalists but also as creators of the opera. On stage, the singing is often performed through huokou based on memorized traditional routines. Huokou is a defining feature of traditional Peking Opera performances and how the art form existed during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republican Era.²⁶

The practice of huokou included both the ability to set lyrics to existing melodies and to generate improvisations based on them. This skill was still required of Peking opera actors by the end of the twentieth century, but has gradually become non-essential. Nevertheless, huokou is still valued among performers today. It also continues to thrive in Taiwanese opera, both the traditional plays and opeila, which I recently experienced in Taipei.²⁷

Given this book’s expansive scope, some assertions may inevitably invite disagreement or be susceptible to factual inaccuracies. Rolston makes a sweeping statement when he notes that most of the innovations by Mei Lanfang and his collaborator Qi Ruhan ‘were made under a Western gaze for the purpose of turning Jingju into a form of theater suitable to be shown to foreigners’.²⁸ He cites as an example that the first performance of Mei Lanfang’s 1930 US tour was such a failure that Mei immediately hired an American impresario to change the programme to be more suitable for Western audiences at his New York premier. Rolston relies on the often erroneous account from A.C. Scott’s book, which was frequently repeated by others, to underscore his broader point about the problems of international reception of Peking opera.²⁹ Given that the details of the event are inaccurate – neither the dramatic failure nor the impresario’s last-minute intervention took place – this is an unfortunate example.³⁰ More importantly, it overlooks the complexity of historical and cultural forces that shaped the modernisation of Peking opera. To dismiss Mei’s collaboration with Qi Rushan merely as operating ‘under a Western gaze’ is one-sided, diminishing the agency of Mei Lanfang and his troupe.³¹

Rolston is to be commended for the ambitious book – an important contribution to Anglophone scholarship on Peking opera. It will be consulted by future scholars in years to come. By bringing together the complex historical threads that shaped this Xikao collection, Rolston sheds light on the evolving discourse surrounding Peking opera and the broader cultural milieu in which it circulated. Why should we care about Xikao today? Xikao remains foundational to the study of the Peking operatic tradition, offering fertile ground for deeper engagement and research on the transformation of this art form.

During my recent month in Taipei, I attended productions of three Peking operas drawn directly from Xikao: Qunying hui (The Gathering of Heroes) from Volume 4, Xiaoyao jin (Carefree Ford) from Volume 3, and Wutai shan (Wutai Mountain) from Volume 7. It is not surprising that The Gathering of Heroes is especially praised in Xikao, where the editor notes: ‘The content of this play is particularly compelling and engaging for audiences, representing the very essence of the Three Kingdoms repertoire’.³² The entry also details the ideal attributes and characterisations for the four leading roles. In Taipei, as an engaged audience member mesmerised by the three-hour production – masterfully performed by four young lead actors – I relied on the supertitles projected onto the two sides of the stage. In addition, the opera ended with an episode named Zhuangbie (Valiant Parting) that is not a part of the play in Xikao. ³³ Though Xikao records particular versions, the operas themselves are far from static – they continue to develop, shaped by new ideas and performance practices.

One might ask what form a twenty-first-century counterpart to Xikao might take – a collection that captures the living, evolving practice of Sinosphere operatic culture, as shaped by today’s visionary playwrights, virtuoso performers, cross-disciplinary talents and collaborators. While the fixity of textualisation may pose challenges to flexible performance, a modern version of Xikao might be worthwhile. Immediately, it could serve effectively as a cultural device for opera performances to join and be attuned to the dynamics of the vibrant theatrical world. There might be innovative solutions for today’s textualisation capable of registering the dynamic interaction or permeability between the oral and the written. Most importantly, given the inherently ephemeral nature of theatrical performances, without textualisation, they risk being lost to future generations of performers, scholars and fans.³⁴