When Beijing Chinese Opera Troup was formed, the first opera they put on stage was A Poetic Gathering, performed by Zhang Jun-Qiu. This opera starts with a poetic gathering in which some characters take false identities to compete in poetry writing. Che Jing-Fang, the leading female role, is intelligent and independent. Zhang Jun-Qiu specialized in interpreting such female roles who are brave to make their own decisions about marriages with a smooth and grand singing style. Operas such as Wang-jiang Pavilion, The Scholar as the Match-maker, and The Western Chamber, take on the same themes with different stories.

       Compared to other operas of the Zhang School, the vocal design of A Poetic Gathering has a breakthrough in its combination of ban tunes and the speed. Generally speaking, when writing a new tune, composers in earlier times focus on the number of words (lyrics) and shua-ban (changes of rhythms). For example, Tan Xin-Pei composed the following section, “Three years’ filial piety, changes three months’ fate; three day’s filial piety, changes three hours’ fate…” in Ascending the Heavenly Alter. He changed the number of words in the original lyrics, which was seven words or ten words in one sentence, and verified the original rhythm. Many actors who play dan (female roles) and other roles imitate what he did. The “xi-ping tune” in A Poetic Gathering, “Joyfully, I enter the drawing room”, is full of sentences of different lengths, which is rare in Chinese Opera.  When the sentences are of different lengths, it is hard to sing them in the old tune, and this shows the unique style and the subtle way of the writer. In this section, the first sentence is sung in a high-pitched voice, which brings in a bright and surprising beginning that shows the happiness of the character. When the character sings the line, “I want to move forward but I hesitate, I hesitate and I hover indecisively”, the high-pitched voice gradually becomes low and lengthened, which shows Cheng Jing-Fang’s uneasiness and shyness. As for the rhythm, at first it is slow and sentimental, but with the line, “I am a woman, but I am ambitious”, the ban tune is changed and the coming “three-word lines” (“(He is) gentle by nature, can compose wonderful lines, form good poems” are sung with few changes like chanting which builds up the atmosphere gradually. In the last sentence, “Just this of mine is better than those tunes of courting next door”, the words “pin” and “ge” are sung in a high-pitched tone which ends the section in a grand style.