Classic tale revived as comic opera

How do you turn a story everyone already thinks they know into something that feels new — especially when that story is as familiar as Wukong Thrice Confronts Lady Whitebone, a classic episode of Journey to the West, and the form is comic opera, a genre that demands both musical rigor and theatrical wit?

At the National Centre for the Performing Arts, that question became the starting point for a three-year creative production: an original comic opera, Wukong Thrice Confronts Lady Whitebone. It will premiere in Beijing on July 17 with shows running until July 20, reimagining one of Chinese literature's most retold stories through a distinctly contemporary lens.

Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) writer Wu Cheng'en, follows the adventures of Tang Dynasty (618-907) monk Xuanzang and his three disciples: Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing, on their journey to find Buddhist scriptures. Wukong Thrice Confronts Lady Whitebone is one of the most famous episodes in Journey to the West.

The plot follows Sun Wukong escorting Xuanzang and his companions through White Tiger Ridge, where they are targeted by Lady Whitebone, a demon who seeks immortality by eating the monk. Unable to attack openly, she disguises herself three times — as a young woman, an old woman, and an old man — to trick the group. Each time, Sun Wukong sees through the illusion and destroys her physical forms, but the Tang monk believes he is killing innocent people. Misunderstood and condemned for his actions, Sun Wukong is driven away. Only later does Xuanzang realize all three disguises were the same demon, revealing the tragic gap between truth and perception.

The creative team did not see the familiarity of the story as an advantage. Li Jin, director of the art creation center of the NCPA, describes the production as a matter of constructing a new "operational logic" for a well-worn tale — one built on three interconnected forces: music, embodied performance, and visual design. According to him, "none of these elements are decorative". Each one functions as a "driving mechanism" for storytelling, pushing the narrative forward from different directions at once.

Music sits at the center of the production. Composer Hao Weiya approaches the opera less as a sequence of arias and more as a continuous field of action. He has described the score as something that must "move like the story breathes" — where rhythm becomes narrative momentum.

"Instead of relying on grand operatic heaviness, the opera will feature music with chamber-like clarity and agility, punctuated by unexpected timbres such as kalimbas and birdcalls," the composer says. In his view, comedy in opera cannot be forced; it emerges when sound and situation align just enough for the audience to recognize the absurdity for themselves.

That idea of "recognition rather than forced laughter" runs through the entire production, he notes.