Dance drama "Peony Pavilion" will kick off the Shanghai International Arts Festival.

The 20-hour, 55-scene Kunqu Opera "Peony Pavilion" has been - blessedly - condensed into one and a half hours of dance drama about star-crossed lovers. The convoluted classic from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is about a ghostly dream lover, death, resurrection and a high test score on the even-then-formidable national examination.

It will kick off the Shanghai International Arts Festival on October 18 at Shanghai Grand Theater.

A Broadway-style version of "Cinderella," the old Prince Charming, wicked stepmother and silver slipper tale, will be performed on October 17-22 at Shanghai Majestic Theater.

"Peony Pavilion" is a new dance drama by the Battlefront Culture Troupe of the Political Department of Nanjing Military Area. It discards much of the dramatic warfare in the original, focusing instead on the love between the maiden Du Liniang and scholar Liu Mengmei. It incorporates some gestures from the famous Kunqu Opera version.

This is the story: A maiden falls asleep in a peony-filled pavilion, meets her true-love scholar in a dream, then awakens and languishes without him until death. It winds on. He loves her too, from the same dream, and is filled with longing. He moves to the same peony pavilion.

She returns from the underworld to haunt him in his dreams. Then there's resurrection and reunion. Her father opposes the marriage, thinks the scholar is a grave robber and condemns him to death.

When it is learned, however, that he finally passed the national exam with flying colors, he becomes a hero and the marriage is sanctioned - it ends happily ever after.