Red Cliff, an epic historical Peking Opera, produced by the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) based on China's chaotic Three Kingdoms period (220-280), is to stage its eighth series of performances this week.

Promising young Peking Opera singers Zhang Jianfeng and Dou Xiaoxuan are to sing alongside China's top tenors Meng Guoluo and Li Hongtu in the grand work, which engages about 120 actors on stage.

Since its premiere in 2008, the operatic work, with a libretto by Cai Fuchao and directed by Zhang Jigang,  choreographer of the 2008 Beijing Olympics ceremonies, Red Cliff has performed nearly 50 sold-out shows around the country, winning critical claim for its soul-stirring arias, luxury and aesthetic stage design.

Unlike the usual settings for Peking Opera, which are traditionally more symbolic and simple, director Zhang and stage designer Gao Guangjian created bold innovations by referring to Western opera styles in a story about upheaval and treachery between rival warlords, with magnificent scenes such as "Borrowing Arrows by Scarecrow-soldiers on Boats " and "Battle of Red Cliff," thus creating the biggest national appeal for the traditional art in years.

"We used to say 'listen to Peking Opera' but nowadays people talk about 'watching Peking Opera,'" said executive director Shi Hongtu.
"Peking Opera is an audio-visual art and it has to develop. Inner performances need to be brought out with the help of the grand stage design," Shi added, warning that Red Cliff's grandiose setting and bombastic appeal should not set a new template for the form.

"Although the Battle of Red Cliff is such a magnificent and critical one in history that it defines the formation of the period, we cannot make this grand setting a pattern for every work,"  he said.

"Settings have to be adjusted according to screenplay, stage infrastructure and other elements."