183 Beijing Operas - Ling Guan - Number 223

Ling Guan

Beijing Opera - "Sizhou City"

Ling Guan with a red fairy face plays a supernatural being in the opera "Sizhou City," also called "Presenting a Pearl at Rainbow Bridge." The opera is about a mother jellyfish who live in an underwater crystal palace at Rainbow Bridge near Sizhou City. Having spent a thousand years in religious meditation, she has acquired supernatural powers but longs for secular joys. One day she sees the handsome son of the magistrate of Sizhou. By her magical powers she brings him to her underwater palace and forces him to marry her. He tricks her into giving him a pearl with which he can travel safely through the water then he intoxicates her and flees. When the monster awakes and finds the young man gone, she floods Sizhou City. Gods come to the rescue of the city but none is her match. Finally, Guanyin the Goddess of Mercy arrives and by a series of tricks succeeds in shackling the monster. This opera is based on a story from "Camel Tales on the Chou-E." a novel about the notorious eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1508-1627) and political life in the late Ming. Chou-E is a mythical beast often used in ancient Chinese fables as an allegory of every wicked person.