The Fairy Couple

Introduction

The Huangmei opera The Fairy Couple retells the Eastern Han legend of Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy, a story recorded in Gan Bao's In Search of the Supernatural. Ban Youshu finished a first adapted draft in November 1951, and in May 1953 Lu Hongfei adapted the whole play from the oral version of Hu Yuting and an edition printed by the Kunji bookshop in Anqing. At the East China opera festival held in Shanghai in the autumn of 1954 it won first prize for its script along with awards for performance, direction and music, and the stage version settled into six scenes. In 1955 the Shanghai Tianma Film Studio filmed the stage version, with a screenplay by Sang Hu, direction by Shi Hui, and Yan Fengying and Wang Shaofang in the leads. It was the first Huangmei opera film made on the mainland, and its duet Husband and Wife Return Home Together became widely known.

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