Actors and actresses of the Boxing Lüju Opera Troupe perform a traditional play Forced Marriage.

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Boxing County, located in northern Shandong Province, is well known for the legend of Dongyong, a man who was filial to his father and finally married a fairy princess. The county is also famous for the ruins of the Xingguo Temple, first built in the Eastern Wei Dynasty. Also, as one of the places where Lüju Opera emerged, Lüju Opera in Boxing is warmly embraced by local fans for its melodious manner of singing and other distinctive characteristics.

In recent years, the local cultural department, professional opera troupes and related organizations jointly promoted the spread and protection of Lüju Opera, which gained popularity among local people and has enriched people’s cultural life.

At the end of March, when the news of the establishment of the Boxing Lüju Opera Union had just been released, staff received piles of application forms to register in the union. Although the union does not offer many memberships, it is rich in enthusiasm. Boxing County, known as the Hometown of Lüju Opera, holds hundreds of cultural activities every year, but the Lüju Opera enjoys the most popularity among audiences. The establishment of the union aims to promote the inheritance and spread of this opera genre, and create a platform for the Lüju Opera performers and professions to communicate with each other.

The Boxing Lüju Opera Troupe is tasked with protecting an item of national intangible cultural heritage—the Lüju Opera. This local opera troupe strives to perform and promote Lüju Opera in both urban and rural areas, and continuously study and innovate traditional plays and create new works. Wang Jing, the deputy head of the opera troupe, said that under the financial assistance of a special fund of the national intangible cultural heritage protection, the troupe revived many traditional Lüju Opera plays, such as Hu Lin Snatches a Bride and Forced Marriage. The troupe has already performed these traditional repertoires more than 30 times. In addition, the troupe also searched for local legends and folk stories for inspiration and recently organized a series of plays, such as The Filial Son Dong Yong.

Due to the importance of preserving this cultural legacy, the local troupe probed into the historical materials to collect and organize traditional plays several times. Their research findings on Lüju Opera, including origins of the opera genre and repertoires, have been recorded in the Volume of Traditional Operas of The Cultural Spectacle of Boxing County.