The Woman with No Escape: Operatic Retellings of the Zhu Maichen Story

Abstract The Zhu Maichen story originates as a case of ‘female-initiated divorce' in an ancient Chinese biography, before later becoming a familiar late imperial narrative. In the last hundred years, it has featured as a prominent part of the narrative heritage available for operatic reworking. The absence of a canonical authorial version gives more space for playwrights and performers to incorporate their current perspectives of gender and sexuality into various renditions. We have seen a continuance of older patterns where the wife is demonised for her desire to divorce, as well as productions tending to reconsider the travails of the wife. The Hokkien-language genre liyuanxi draws on local narrative versions to arrive at a happy ending, enabling Zhu to remarry his wife, while a new jingju (Beijing opera) version at the turn of century even enables the disillusioned wife to liberate herself from the hypocritic Confucian family. Yet in liyuanxi the wife is taken back, having retained chastity during their parting, while in jingju the wife's materialistic motivations led to criticism in the press. The female-initiated divorce thus provides no escape for Zhu Maichen's wife, who is condemned even when tragedy is averted or the narrative’s patriarchal morality subverted.