Xianglin's Wife

Introduction

Adapted from Lu Xun's story The New Year's Sacrifice and first staged in Yue opera by Yuan Xuefen in 1946

Xianglin's Wife is a modern Yue opera adapted from Lu Xun's story The New Year's Sacrifice, written by the Yue opera playwright and director Nan Wei. The Xuesheng troupe first staged it in 1946 with Yuan Xuefen in the title role, the first time the story reached the Yue opera stage, and the press called it a milestone of the new Yue opera. Widowed young, Xianglin's wife is sold by her mother-in-law to He Laoliu and bears a son, Amao, but her husband soon dies of illness and the boy is carried off by a wolf. She returns to work for the Lu household but is shunned as ill-omened for having lost two husbands, and even after buying a temple threshold in penance she is turned out and dies in the snow. The Shanghai Yue Opera House staged it again in 1956, with Yuan Xuefen once more as the heroine and Fan Ruijuan as He Laoliu, and the Shanghai Film Studio made a film of it in 1978.

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