Carrying the Bridal Sedan

Introduction

From the old play The Fragrant Pouch; Yao Shufang and Song Guiling turned the sedan-chair ride into its showpiece scene

Carrying the Bridal Sedan, also known as The Fragrant Pouch, is a traditional Henan opera adapted from an old play of that name. Set in the Yongle reign of the Ming, it follows Zhou Fenglian, who marries the military top graduate of the Qiu family; her adopted brother Zhou Jinbao escorts her sedan chair and finds in the Qiu household his fiancée Wang Dingyun, whom he had believed drowned. Zhou Fenglian persuades both sets of parents to set aside their concerns about rank, and the couple marry. In the early 1960s Yao Shufang turned the sedan-chair ride, once a brief linking scene, into a major scene of singing and acting. The Xiangfu-style actress Song Guiling later revised the play, adding an aria in erba metre and expanding the business of carrying and riding, and most later performers build on her version. In 1986 the Beijing and Zhejiang film studios made it into an opera film with Wang Qingfen as Zhou Fenglian.

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