Promotional material for Hero, which was staged at National Centre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night Photo: Courtesy of Lu Xu

Promotional material for Hero, which was staged at National Centre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night Photo: Courtesy of Lu Xu

An opera about the first female party member of the Communist Party of China, Miu Boying, and her husband He Mengxiong was staged at Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. 

Both Miu and He sacrificed their lives for China's early revolution efforts in the 1930s. Their stories inspired Xiao Hongbin, director of the Zhuzhou City Opera Heritage Center, to create the opera - Hero. 

"They and their stories must be remembered in an art form like opera, which is Zhuzhou's specialty," Xiao said. 

With four acts covering how Miu and He met, fell in love and worked toward their shared goal of a Chinese revolution, the opera is full of passion, dreams and romance. 

Huang Dingshan, the opera's director, said that "it had to be a story about how a group of young pioneers chase their dreams and follow their passions."

In addition to the opera's creative stage design, which transports audiences back to more than 90 years ago, the work has also won over people's hearts for its broad use of local musical instruments and folk songs. 

"A good piece of music is key to operas, which can not only boost the country's development, but also remind us of China's outstanding cultural heritage," said Du Ming, the opera's songwriter. 

Huang said the opera, also a great example of China's homegrown operas, aims to combine "our own traditional elements and Western opera styles and techniques." 

This can be seen in some key acts in Hero like "Wedding" and "Mass Strike."

The opera has previously toured to Shanghai, Wuhan and Changsha and has plans to head to theaters in other major cities and even some remote villages of China.