The Moon Opera - Hardcover

Feiyu, Bi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151012946 ISBN 13: 9780151012947

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009

Synopsis

The debut novel of one of China’s rising young literary talents—a gem of a book that takes a piercing look into the world of Chinese opera and its female stars In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching.

Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang’e. So she does, this time believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess.

Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu, one of China’s young literary stars, re-creates all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over in this gem of a novel.

About this title

About the Author

BI FEIYU, winner of the 2010 Man Asian Prize for Three Sisters, is one of the most respected authors and screenwriters in China today. He was born in 1964 in Xinghua, in the province of Jiangsu. A journalist and poet as well as a novelist, he has been awarded a number of literary prizes, including the Lu Xun Prize for 1995–96. He cowrote the film Shanghai Triad, which was directed by the acclaimed Zhang Yimou.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Moon Opera:

"What a gem of a novel! Bi Feiyu gives us a glimpse not only into the Chinese opera world but deep into a woman's heart. I hope this is the first of many of Bi's works to come to us in translation." -- Lisa See, author of Peony in Love

"This tiny, perfect novel concerns the hermetic world of traditional Peking Opera.... There are distant echoes of All About Eve ? the young goddess must always usurp the old." -- The Times (London)

From the Inside Flap

In a fit of diva jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching.

Twenty years later, a rich cigarette-factory boss offers to underwrite a restaging of the cursed opera, but only on the condition that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang e. So she does, this time ultimately believing she has fully become the immortal moon goddess.

Set against the drama, intrigue, jealousy, retribution, and redemption of backstage Peking opera, The Moon Opera is a stunning portrait of women in a world that simultaneously reveres and restricts them. Bi Feiyu takes a piercing look at all the temptations and triumphs of the stage the world over, resulting in a beautiful novel by one of China s young literary stars.

Reviews

A peerless singer in the Peking Opera is ruined by her jealousy of her understudy in this vividly sketched tale of art and money by Chinese screenwriter (Shanghai Triad) and novelist Feiyu. In 1979, 20 years before the novel takes place, the actress Xiao Yanqiu debuted brilliantly and memorably as the lead in The Moon Opera, although she soon wrecked her career when she attacked her understudys teacher in a fit of rage at sharing the spotlight. Now 40, unhappily married and overweight, Xiao is offered the chance to reprise her role in a new production bankrolled by a factory owner and former fan. Xiao, who assumes the role to perfection, chooses as her understudy a gifted student, Chunlai, who postpones a TV career for the promise of the stage. The scene is set for a terrible showdown, naturally, complicated by the clash between art and money, as exemplified by the crass interests of the factory owner. The novels slimness, simple storytelling and overarching morality lend it a fable-like air, with Xiao filling the role of its tormented star. (Jan.)
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*Starred Review* This slender novel on a rather narrow topic nevertheless resonates with a clear, crystalline bell tone. The Chinese author, in his first novel, brings his admirably, even stunningly, precise and effortlessly metaphoric style to bear (“That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind”) on one aspect of Chinese culture that has transcended the change in regimes over the centuries: the Peking opera. As we, in fascination, observe here, the Peking opera is a tightly ritualized, tradition-bound art form, and the more nuanced and subtle the performance, the more highly regarded the performer. The novel’s conceit is that a wealthy factory owner is prepared to endow a new production of The Moon Opera, which has not been performed for two decades; however, the factory owner’s stipulation is that the production must star the lead female singer who performed it previously. She, though, has essentially retired from the stage and is now a singing teacher. The story, then, becomes the story of this prima donna’s attempt to recapture the role and her former fame, and what she learns about her true legacy to the Peking opera. At once a sad and lovely story. --Brad Hooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151012946
• ISBN 13: 9780151012947
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128