Chinese Heroines - Liang Hongyu

Music theatre Lian Hongyu by Guo Wenjing, world premiere at Holland Festival 2008 as part of Chinese Heroines, a trilogy with Mu Guiying, Hua Mulan and Liang Hongyu.
The third and final opera of the trilogy Chinese Heroines will have its world premiere during the Holland Festival. Director Li Liuyi, who makes his European debut with this trilogy, and composer Guo Wenjing, whose Night Banquet – ‘a masterpiece of lunacy’ (Le Monde) – has previously been performed in the Holland Festival, have now taken their inspiration from the Chinese clown tradition. Liang Hongyu was a famous prostitute who, after carrying out various deeds of war, chose to live in isolation in her brothel. The owner of the brothel uses seventy-two herbs for the bath that is supposed to preserve Liang’s beauty and youth, although despite such well-meant intentions Liang is nevertheless plagued by loneliness and boredom. One night the ghosts of three dead men arrive to raise her spirits.