1 h 46 minAudiobook2 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What is an emperor’s love worth when the world beyond his palace begins to fall apart?
At the Tang court, Emperor Xuanzong gives his heart to Lady Yang. Music, dancing, and rich gifts surround them, but affection offers no lasting safety. Yang seeks more than passing favour in a palace where jealousy grows and a ruler’s will shapes her life. Hong Sheng’s Chinese opera places their tenderness beside the duties an emperor neglects.
Beyond the lovers’ pleasures, family ambition and corruption deepen the danger. Yang Guozhong benefits from his powerful relative’s position, while the favoured commander An Lushan becomes a rebel. As rebellion forces the court to flee, promises meet pressures that wealth cannot ease. The Palace of Eternal Life brings royal intimacy into painful contact with political disaster.
What you’ll discover
- Love under imperial power Follow Lady Yang’s search for lasting devotion where favour brings both privilege and danger.
- Music within the palace Enter scenes of court performance where beauty connects imperial splendour to lives disrupted by war.
- The cost of neglect Explore the conflict between Xuanzong’s private devotion and his responsibility to govern.
- A court in flight Feel the pressure as rebellion strips palace pleasures of their power to protect.
- History beside legend Discover an opera where tenderness, ceremony, political conflict, and supernatural hope share the stage.
Who will love it
For readers who love tragic royal romances, Chinese history, and theatre where music and supernatural hope stand beside political disaster.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
Who’s who
- Emperor XuanzongThe Tang emperor’s devotion to Lady Yang conflicts with his responsibility to govern.
- Lady YangThe emperor’s beloved seeks lasting devotion in a court where favour brings both power and danger.
- Yang GuozhongLady Yang’s powerful relative links the imperial household to the political failures surrounding it.
- An LushanA favoured military commander becomes the rebel whose uprising drives the court into crisis.
- Love beyond deathThe opera places the lovers’ promise against earthly separation and the possibility of reunion beyond ordinary life.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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Read and hear Il Palazzo della vita eterna in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Il Palazzo della vita eterna
by Hong Sheng · 1688
Emperor Xuanzong’s devotion to Lady Yang puts love and the duties of an empire on a collision course.
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In short
The Palace of Eternal Life is a Chinese opera by Hong Sheng about Emperor Xuanzong and Lady Yang, whose love becomes entangled with the decline of the Tang court. It joins the pleasures of palace life to the suffering outside its walls, asking what devotion is worth when an emperor neglects his duties.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
At the Tang imperial court, Emperor Xuanzong gives his heart to Lady Yang. Their love grows amid music, dancing, rich gifts, and the pleasures that imperial power can provide. Yet the emperor is not simply a lover. His choices affect officials, soldiers, and people far beyond the palace, and his devotion to Yang draws him away from the demands of rule.
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What is The Palace of Eternal Life about?
Hong Sheng’s opera follows the love of Emperor Xuanzong and Lady Yang as the Tang court moves toward disaster. Their private devotion is inseparable from imperial favour, corruption, and rebellion. The story combines a royal romance with a searching account of failed government.
Are Emperor Xuanzong and Lady Yang real people?
Yes. Emperor Xuanzong ruled during the Tang dynasty, and Lady Yang, also known as Yang Guifei, was his celebrated consort. The opera draws on their historical relationship and the An Lushan rebellion, but also uses legend and supernatural events rather than offering a strictly factual history.
Who wrote The Palace of Eternal Life, and when?
Hong Sheng, a Chinese playwright of the Qing dynasty, wrote The Palace of Eternal Life in the seventeenth century, completing it in 1688. The fifty-scene opera belongs to the long dramatic tradition associated with Kunqu, a form of Chinese musical theatre.
The author
Hong Sheng
1645–1704 · Chinese Qing dynasty playwright
Hong Sheng (1645–1704) was a Chinese playwright and poet of the Qing dynasty. He was born in Hangzhou and lived for part of his life in Beijing. He wrote plays and poetry in Chinese. His play The Palace of Eternal Life was completed in 1688.
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