[Photo/China Daily]

The seeds of innovation were planted in the 1980s when Mao failed her college entrance exam. To make up for what she perceives to be her failure at higher education, she immersed herself in the intellectual pursuits of the day, such as reading newly permitted philosophy and literature from Western countries, frequenting fine arts exhibitions and befriending modern dancers.

"People say an actor of traditional opera does not need 'depth', but I believe the opposite. Such an actor should be able to jump out of his or her own field and examine it from another perspective. Only then can one excel in his or her profession," Mao says.

While she was rising fast on the opera stage, this kind of intellectual exposure brought her a breadth of knowledge almost unparalleled in her own circle. And it certainly helped that her husband, Guo Xiaonan, is trained in theater but has a family background in traditional Chinese opera - a different form from Yue Opera though.

Mao's determination to stem the decline of audience members by broadening not just the repertoire but also the artistic idiom of the form has repeatedly made headlines. For the centennial celebration of Yue Opera in 2006, she produced The Butterfly Lovers, an opera made famous through numerous productions and a movie musical. Yet, Mao was able to breathe new life into what is often called the Chinese Romeo and Juliet, although the narrative actually resembles Yentl more closely.

A young woman in ancient China disguises herself as a man so that she can be enrolled in school. She meets a classmate and falls in love with him, but cannot bring herself to divulge her secret. In Mao's retelling, the shift of the male lead's friendship into romantic love has been made less sudden and more logical.

"If we had followed the original production, today's young audiences would read his feelings for her as homosexual sentiments as, for a long time, he did not know her true gender," Mao notes.

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