Reading the Snow and the Footprints

Introduction

A high-tune scene of the Sichuan opera The Silk Pavilion: footprints in the snow make Lü Mengzheng doubt his wife

Reading the Snow and the Footprints is a scene from The Silk Pavilion, a traditional full-length Sichuan opera sung in the high-tune style. The Silk Pavilion belongs to the Eighteen Plays of the Rivers and Lakes and the Eight Great Records of the Sichuan repertoire, and it descends from the southern drama The Ruined Kiln, which one article traces back to Wang Shifu's zaju on Lü Mengzheng in the snow. The poor scholar Lü Mengzheng lives with his wife Liu Cuiping in a cold kiln; seeing strange footprints in the snow, he suspects her of infidelity, until it turns out that a steward and a maid from her father's house had brought rice and charcoal, and he apologises to her. Lü Mengzheng is a poor-scholar role, and the Sichuan opera master Zeng Ronghua summed up its secret in three words: sour, cold and hungry. The Kunqu version of the scene staged by the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe was transplanted wholly from Sichuan opera, adapted by Shen Chuanzhi and taught by Zeng Ronghua. Today Xiao Demei plays Lü Mengzheng and Yu Jia plays Liu Cuiping.