“Five Stars”Troupe Shines in Peking Opera

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The Tenth Zhejiang Theater Festival held at the end of 2007 ushered in a new rule: for the first time in the history of the festival, private opera troupes across the province were qualified to compete for the government honors designed to advance stage arts in the province. At the festival, private troupes staged more than 10 plays while government-sponsored troupes staged more than 38 plays. All the performances were staged in rural Shengzhou, where Yueju Opera originated. Young Phoenixes Take Wings, a play staged by the private five stars peking opera troupe of Wenzhou, won the gold award.

Unlike some government-sponsored troupes in the province, the Five Stars is a private business based in Wenzhou, a city in southern Zhejiang Province where the booming private sector has helped transform the economic landscape of China over the last 30 years. The predecessor of the Five Stars was the Wenzhou Peking Opera Troupe, which was disbanded in 1986. Fu Lixin, a Peking Opera artist and a member of the disbanded troupe, refused to accept the reality. And he was not alone to refuse to let the opera die in the city. He and his colleague Hu Liujian proposed to take out a contract to run a private Peking Opera Troupe

And for 10,000 a yuan per year, use the props of the previous troupe. The proposal was accepted by the authorities, thus was born the Five Stars.Dozens of the artists of the previous troupe joined Fu and Hu.

The theater tradition runs deep in Wenzhou. The ancient Chinese theater originated and flourished in Wenzhou in the years of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). According to a survey, there exist more than 1,000 clan memorial temples across the rural Wenzhou and all these temples double as theaters, which indicate a huge audience and huge demand out there for opera performances. What is more, Wenzhou was China's very first pioneer of private business on a large scale in the 1970s and hit pay dirt shortly after the policy of reform and opening up to the world was adopted.

However, the first year was hard for the Five Stars. The troupe almost did not survive. It made a profit of only 17.2 yuan at the year end. Fu Lixin and Hu Liujian knew that the huge market was out there, but the troupe was not good enough to satisfy the great demands. To bring the business around, Fu Lixin and Hu Liujian decided to employ the best Peking Opera artists across the country. As many professional troupes were idle in the face of a changed market that they did not know how to handle, the Five Stars was a big attraction to the best but idle artists of these troupes because it offered alluring opportunities to stage shows.

With big-name artists employed, the troupe advertised and offered a repertoire of 50 regular plays. Performance contracts flooded in from villages. Staging performances in rural areas is by no means easy. Artists must travel. Frequently performances are requested to celebrate a private anniversary, or the birth of a son, thus making the workload even tighter and harder. It is quite common that the troupe has to stage two plays in a day.What is more, life on the road is hard, for expenditures have to be cut to the bone. Sometimes artists camp outdoors or sleep on a stage. One of the anecdotes of the troupe is about spending a scary night beside an empty coffin. The troupe works hard to establish its reputation across the rural Wenzhou.

Though the life on the road is physically challenging, many artists are happy. Xi Zhonglu, a Shanghai-based state master of Peking Opera, says he is greatly satisfied with the Five-Star. Peking Opera is no big business in Shanghai and he has few chances to appear in shows there, but in Wenzhou people simply love operas and he has appeared in more than 500 shows staged by the Five-Stars for the past ten years.

Indeed, the troupe is more than a paradise for established artists who seek a space to show their excellence in Peking Opera. It is also give budding artists ample opportunities to mature and become successful. For the past 20 plus years, the troupe has contracted more than 20 state-grade masters to stage shows for the troupe. Contracted artists come from all over the country. Some stay for a few years while some have worked for the troupe for more than 10 years. In recent years, about ten young artists have graduated from the troupe to bigger and better troupes in Beijing, Hangzhou, Harbin, Dalian and even New York. The contract system keeps bringing in new faces to the rural audiences, which love to see new dramas and new faces.

In the southern part of Zhejiang Province, the Five Stars has established a fine reputation for its "dramatic excellence and quality performance". The local government has also helped the troupe survive and prosper all these years. In 2007 alone, the government purchased 21 performances from the troupe at the unit price of 5,000 yuan. Nowadays, the Five Stars Peking Opera Troupe is able to make an adequate amount of 800,000 per year.

Peking Opera of China, a national periodical, has published a feature story by Na Bo, an instrumentalist who once worked for the Five Stars. The feature lauds the dedication of the artists of the troupe and discusses its successful business mode, believing that the troupe's experience can be helpful to the troupes still struggling to make a good living in the rapidly changing showbiz market.