183 Beijing Operas - Toad Spirit - Number 265

Toad Spirit

Beijing Opera - "Five-Flower Cave"

Toad Spirit with a green symbolic face plays one of the five poisons "Five-Flower Cave," an opera based on a Chinese fairy tale. In China, the toad, lizard, scorpion, snake, and centipede are called the five poisons. In the opera the five after undergoing a period of self-cultivation acquire supernatural powers. They leave for the country's capital, intending to make trouble there, but are overpowered by a god called Zhang Jie.