Overall, the newer opera form is highly theatrical and vigorous, while the older form is restrained, gentle, and elegant.
Mr. Sheng avoided the well-known Beijing opera form he had used in "Silver River" (1997), his compact, whimsical second opera.
It was adapted into a full-length opera form, which, although still performed today, was gradually replaced in popularity by jingxi (Peking opera) during the Qing dynasty.
Handel's oratorio "Samson" was staged once in opera form; his "Giulio Cesare" had several runs; and his "Rodelinda," a Ren?Fleming vehicle, was mounted in recent years.
She said the opera form allows its creators "to mix the mythic, the historic and contemporary tragedies with the idea of hope and the idea of change".
"I know the opera form pretty well now and have strong views about what I think is good and what is not so good," he says.
Mr. Lin worked with the Shaanxi Huayin Laoqiang Troupe, who specialize in an opera form found in an interior Chinese province, and Beijing Dance Theater, the nation's pre-eminent contemporary dance group.
Kunqu had begun as a genuinely popular opera form; it was welcomed by audiences in Beijing in the 1600s, but within decades it had become a theatre of the literati, its poetic forms too esoteric and its music too refined for the common audience.
There is even less dialogue in the Broadway production than in the tryout at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Mr. Mayer said, a sign of his faith not only in the rock opera form but also in the potential of punk rock to move audiences of any age or musical taste.
The work is a recent example of the blending of pop strains and classical opera form, a trend seen particularly in Britain, where the English National Opera commissioned the hip-hop Asian Dub Foundation to make a work about the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
