ONE of Japan's foremost Kabuki artists loves Chinese operas. Bando Tamasaburo is known as "Japan's Mei Lanfang" and an innovator who creates cross-cultural theater. Zhao Dan reports.

Dressed in a flamboyant Kunqu Opera costume, Bando Tamasaburo sings melodious Chinese lyrics of "The Peony Pavilion" with a soft and fair voice, enchanting the audience.

Opera lovers were amazed that the slender, graceful "young lady" Du Liniang, a leading character, was actually a Japanese gentleman in his 60s -- and a non-Chinese speaker.

His recent appearance in the 1930s-built Lyceum Theater was only Bando's second performance in the Kunqu Opera "The Peony Pavilion."

This time he demonstrated his further progress in Chinese pronunciation in the singing.

His elegant performance won the hearts of the audience, though some critics said the performance was more like highly stylized Kabuki than Kunqu Opera.

It seemed to many that the main difference between Bando's appearance that of typical Chinese characters was his facial makeup -- whiter than that of a Chinese actress, the pale tones apparently influenced by his Kubuki playing.

After the performance, a gently smiling Bando spoke easily about his life, his career and his trip to Shanghai in a group interview through a translator.

His decades of immersion in Kabuki and various opera styles were evident in his elegant manners and polite gestures. His aura is classical and tranquil, like the philosophy behind the theater he performs.

Bando Tamasaburo is a stage name taken by a series of Kabuki actors of the Bando's family. Born in 1950, Shin'ichi Morita, whose adopted father had been the fourth Bando Tamasaburo, made his first appearance on stage at the age of seven, under the name of Bando Kinoji. At a naming ceremony in 1964, he was given the name of Bando Tamasaburo, becoming the fifth to take the name and so far one of the most popular and celebrated players of female stage roles in Asia.

Bando is best-known to Chinese opera lovers by his performances in "The Peony Pavilion," known as China's "Romeo and Juliet" and written by Tang Xianzu in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

In Kabuki, all the roles are played by men. In Chinese opera, especially Peking Opera, there is a long tradition of males taking female roles. But in Kunqu Opera, there is less cross-casting.

Thus Bando's performance was particularly impressive as a male playing a female in Kunqu Opera, to say nothing of his being Japanese and a non-Chinese speaker.

In "The Peony Pavilion," one of the best-loved classical operas, Du Liniang, the protagonist and daughter of a high official, falls asleep in a pavilion in a garden of peonies. In her dream she meets and falls in love with a young scholar, Liu Mengmei. On awakening, she languishes and dies. Liu later falls in love with her portrait. Then there's a convoluted tale of death and resurrection through love.

Bando said of the play:

"Tang wrote the drama when he was in his old age, and Du Liniang, the girl, drew her own portrait before her death, reflecting her own transition toward death -- that's not something most young women would do."

Bando's understanding of the play is strongly influenced by Japanese concepts of life and death. "I care about the mood from life to death. I focused on the conflicts, sadness and love between life and death, when I was watching the play."

Bando learned Kunqu only recently, beginning in 2007 when he studied with Kunqu master Zhang Jiqing in Suzhou which was the birthplace of the Kunqu Opera. Back in Japan, he recited the words and lyrics at home, following Zhang's videos.

The biggest challenge was Chinese pronunciation.

"Lyrics are easier to learn as they go with music. Monologues and dialogues are very difficult for me." Bando said.

Bando staged his first Kunqu performance of "Peony Pavilion" in 2009 in Shanghai. His counterparts in China respect him greatly for his dedication to learning and his devotion to opera and perfection.

Yu Jiulin, the Chinese actor playing Liu Mengmei, said he truly felt that Bando was a shy, graceful, classical lady with him on stage and sometimes he even felt shy about looking into Bando's eyes as they were so charming and filled with emotion.

In his latest performance Bando played Du Liniang with more confidence.

"I feel it was smoother in performance and feelings this time." Bando said.

On his trip to Shanghai in June, Bando also performed a Kabuki drama "Consort Yang" (a legendary concubine of Emperor Xuanzong in the Tang Dynasty, AD 618-907) -- played on the same stage with Nogaku (Noh) and Peking Operas of the same title. One night three performances of Kabuki, Noh and Peking Opera.

The Peking Opera "Consort Yang" was performed by master Mei Baojiu, son of Mei Lanfang, Peking Opera's greatest master who was famous as a female impersonator.

The Bando family has enjoyed a long friendship with Mei's family and Mei Lanfang even staged in Japan in the early 1900s at the invitation of the Bando family.

Bando was amazed by Mei Lanfang's performance from when he was young. "I once told my father that I wanted to play Mei's Consort Yang some day. At that time, my father chided me for my unrealistic dream, and I was told again what a great master Mei was."

However, Bando proved that he was truly capable of performing as Consort Yang, and is known today in China as the "Japanese Mei Lanfang." His decades of brilliant performance have won applause worldwide.

As early as 1987, Bando staged the Peking Opera "Consort Yang" in Tokyo, after tutoring by Mei Baojiu.

By learning various kinds of theater, Bando has absorbed various elements and applied them to his Kabuki performances.

"My Kabuki performance of 'Consort Yang' is a symbol of new cultural communication. I learned movements, techniques of performances and narration from Peking Opera," said Bando. "I use Kunqu Opera's costumes, Kabuki makeup and luxurious props of Peking Opera. I also 'borrowed' a curtain from Noh in my performance."

In Chinese history, legends and poems, Consort Yang and Emperor Tang Xuanzong were in deep love with each other, but he was so besotted with her that he neglected affairs of state.

Yang, one of the four great beauties of China, was forced to commit suicide during a war of rebellion, leaving the grieving emperor seeking her soul after her death.

There's another story about Yang -- some said that she fled to Japan in the war and lived there until her death.

The legends of the beauty are famous in both China and Japan. There are many Peking Opera and Noh plays about her, but few traditional Kabuki dramas.

Bando invited Chinese playwrights to adapt for Kabuki the ancient narrative poem "Song of Unending Sorrow" about the tragic romance by famous poet Bai Juyi (AD 772-846). Bando applied various dramatic styles and created a new play.

The costumes and props are more or less familiar to a Chinese audience, while the thinking and feelings provoked in his Kabuki performance are rather "Japanese." Unlike Chinese operas that usually depict the actual life of Yang, Bando focused on the afterlife and performed his understanding of love, death and the transience of life.

"The classical beauty of Asian traditional theaters is similar: implicit," Bando said in the interview. "The eye movements, figure, steps and body movements are not directly expressed, not exaggerated. There is 70 percent for actors to perform, and 30 percent is blank, left to imagination and feeling.

"The word 'art' is difficult to understand. But All good artworks will touch our feelings, no matter what art form they take."