Audio Book Description:
For young Peony, betrothed to asuitor she has never met, these lyrics from the Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the ChenFamily Villa, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females haveever seen. Like the heroine in thedrama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Thoughraised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own. Peony`s mother is against her daughter`s attending the production.But Peony`s father assures his wifethat proprieties will be maintained, and that the women willwatch the opera from behind a screen. Yet even hidden from view, Peony catches sight of anelegant, handsome man-and is immediatelyovercome with emotion. So begins Peony`sunforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow, as LisaSee`s haunting new novel, basedon actual historical events, takes listeners back to seventeenth-century China.
