Cai Bojie

Introduction

An old Song–Yuan play of the Shanglu branch of Liyuan opera, keeping the early form of the Zhao the Chaste Woman story

Cai Bojie is one of the Song and Yuan southern dramas preserved in the Liyuan opera of Quanzhou, an old play of the Shanglu branch of the senior Liyuan troupes, ranked with Wang Kui and Zhao the Chaste Woman at the head of the southern drama repertoire. Liyuan opera has a junior and a senior tradition, and the senior one has two branches, Shanglu and Xianan, each with its own core repertoire of eighteen plays; the Shanglu branch came from Zhejiang. Its scene at the Amitabha Temple keeps the ancient tune Mohe Doule and ends with the true portrait recognised and husband and wife at the parents' grave, without the thunderbolt, so it still carries traits of the earliest version of the story. Zhao the Chaste Woman and Wang Kui are the two earliest southern dramas named in the Ming survey of southern drama, and the former told the story of Cai Bojie and Zhao Wuniang that Gao Ming reworked into The Story of the Lute. Liyuan opera was added to the first national intangible heritage list in 2006.