Kunqu Opera still flourishing despite fears for future

Starting from school

Chen Jun, associate professor in the School of Arts at Peking University and deputy director of the Chinese Ministry of Education Designated Inheritance Base for Outstanding Traditional Culture (Kunqu Opera), said that when the play was introduced to Peking University 15 years ago, a joke that made rounds on the campus claimed there were two distinct types of students: those who had seen the opera and those who hadn't.

In 2008, to help students better understand the opera, the university started the Appreciation of Classic Kunqu Opera course, in addition to hands-on workshops. Experienced performers around China were invited to deliver lectures and to teach the performance style in workshops.

The class would become one of the university's most popular – in fact, so popular that, according to Zhang, those who arrived early for a lesson would have to stand at the back of the classroom for the 90-minute session.

Chen, who teaches the class, said that in recent years it has had between 200 and 500 regular students.

"In fact there was a time when we had more than 600 students in attendance."