New Exhibition at Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House Combines Peking Opera and Picture Stories

A new exhibition at the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House is combining Peking Opera and lianhuanhua, a Chinese form of picture-story books, China.org.cn reports.

The exhibition will include manuscripts, prototype pages and vintage editions from the publisher's collection featuring popular stories about Chinese opera art. In addition, a second part of the exhibition will be presented by Peking Opera singer Shi Yihong. She contributed costumes, photographs and historical documents about the heritage of the Mei Lanfang school of Peking Opera.

"When I was little, my parents used to bring home many of these picture books. I actually grew up reading these. I learned many historical tales from such picture books," says Shi. "Some of the costumes and facial expressions in the books are even more intricate than what we have on the stage. I am thinking we could borrow their ideas."

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