The Peony Pavilion
The dominant form of the Ming and early Qing dynasties was Kunqu, which originated in the Wu cultural area. A famous work in Kunqu is "The Peony Pavilion" by Tang Xianzu. Kunqu later evolved into a longer form of play called "chuanqi", which became one of the five melodies that made up Sichuan opera. Currently Chinese operas continue to exist in 368 different forms, the best known being Beijing opera, which assumed its present form in the mid-19th century and was extremely popular in the latter part of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).