Yi Liming (right) instructs actors at a rehearsal in Beijing. The director has been engaged in ambitious projects to present diverse theater productions to Chinese audiences.[Photo provided to China Daily]

When asked why he chose such "difficult" works, Yi is univocal about literary value being the primary concern. "There are members in the Chinese audience who are highly educated and deserve to be served the best of world literature."

Indeed, literary value is one of three factors he cites for the hallmarks of a great stage work, which is often distilled in the dialogue. "What cannot be said outright can be embodied in the music," he says, and that's why opera has been a bigger and bigger attraction for him.

"Other than that is the form."

Lin Zhaohua, the renowned stage master, has been Yi's mentor ever since the latter graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in the late 1980s and joined Beijing People's Art Theater. "Yi's understanding of music is extraordinary and that stimulated my creativity," says Lin.

Yi specialized in set and lighting design, collaborating with Lin on hundreds of productions.

Yi has set his eyes on The Classic of Mountains and Seas, a collection of Chinese mythology, for the long term. What he has in mind has a mammoth scale of 36 plays.

"I don't know whether I can finish it in my lifetime as it depends on whether God will give me the chance," he says.

For all his reliance on classics, Chinese or Western, Yi is most emphatic about original work. He complains that the best Chinese writers are not into stage plays.

"I want to present stage works that reflect the zeitgeist," he insists. "They do not have to break rules, but they have to speak to the audience."

The Imperial Express and The Seven Sages, two in last year's lineup, are both ancient stories, but their relevance to the current times was obvious to those in the know. This year's theme is myth and revolution, about which he has a great deal to say, "but I won't divulge to the critics what I think of the destructive power of revolution. They'll have to find out from my treatment."

Yi hasn't jumped on the bandwagon of Shakespearean anniversary celebrations this year. He has done Hamlet and Coriolanus, and habitually adds his own twist to the standard repertory.

With Lin, he did a hybrid of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Chekhov's Three Sisters.

"Of course it's not the same kind of waiting in the two plays, but I was audacious and didn't know better," he says.

His Oedipus Rex opens with a train loaded with mine workers and his La Traviata is set on the deck of a cruise liner that sailed from Paris to Shanghai. He notes that his offerings may not be "for the masses", but they are anything but complacent.

"I don't believe theater has the potential to lead a nation out of suffering and I don't think one can transcend oneself, but we all have to make our best effort."