Shen Wei has been deploying his wistful choreography at Lincoln Center Summer Festivals for some time now — his work appeared there for three consecutive years, between 2003 and 2005. So his reappearance could mean that the curators are playing it safe. But Shen Wei Dance Arts, best known for Mr. Shen’s chilly, thrilling “Rite of Spring,” has jumped forms. With the opera “Second Visit to the Empress,” Mr. Shen returns to his roots in Chinese classical opera, a form that he left in the late ’80s to join the world of modern dance. His path doesn’t quite describe a full circle, since “Empress” attempts a fusion of the two genres. Instead, the occasionally spectacular work represents a loop on Shen Wei’s upward spiral, an exciting prologue for things to come.

Even in China, the classical operas are on the wane. Younger audiences no longer know the old plots by heart, and, as with every virtuosic art form, fans panic about the dwindling numbers of qualified master-artists. Mr. Shen is, therefore, on a proselytizing mission. Even for untrained Western ears, the work is a treat: spectacular wailing coloratura in the arias, plenty of humor from the secondary characters, and a breathtaking score that sounds a little bit like an orchestra waging a pitched battle.

In an expositional recitative section (added since the piece premiered in 2005), we learn that the widowed Empress (Zhang Jing) once mistakenly ignored two advisers, General Yang (He Wei) and Duke Xu (Deng Mu Wei), who warned her against her father’s imperial ambitions. In trying to protect the infant heir, she then allowed her father to act as regent, and his dastardly behavior (he cut off his daughter’s head!), has left her in fear for her life. In the opera proper, the two advisers return, seeking an additional audience, and nearly the entirety of the piece’s running time is spent in winning her over to their cause.

Mr. Shen, also a visual artist, designs as ferociously as he directs; in “Folding,” bizarrely elongated figures seemed to convert into bolts of fabric and in “The Rite of Spring,” he drained the music of hysteria with a dispassionately colorless palette. In an echo of “Spring,” the dancers of “Second Visit to the Empress” wear simple gray pajamas, with their faces painted ash-white. When they perform in front of the scrim, a massive expanse of storm-gray with a calligraphy-stroke treebranch, the dancers could be the animated lines of the artist’s signature.

Intruding on the gray, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton illuminates the singers, who wear conventionally elaborate operatic gear: A purple Empress, a cardinal-red Duke Xu, a leaf-green General Yang. While Mr. Shen keeps the elements cleanly separated, as he does throughout the 30-minute long prologue, the dancers seem to haunt the opera: pale modernity flits around the ornament and solidity of tradition. But by the time all the scenic elements have muscled onstage — a sculptural throne, terrifying chandeliers, a vividly painted mountain range, and glowing cubes — the visual diet has grown too rich.

The dancers, particularly the weightless Dai Jian, twist and flutter through Mr. Shen’s choreography, letting the singers’ plosives and sighs stimulate their gestures. In this piece about language (particularly apology and persuasion), the dancers physically manifest the sound of sung Chinese. Eventually, the approach feels oppressively literal. But by then the singers have taken over the narrative. They are dancers, too — Duke Xu does a lot while preening his luscious angora beard and a royal attendant (Song Yang) only needs to coil her hands to bring down the house.

Mr. Shen himself also appears, dancing during a stunning scene set at the Emperor’s mausoleum. After a female figure, its back to us in a long robe, pours out its grief, he appears in a shining silver tunic. Coiled up in one hand is a scarflike sleeve, which Mr. Shen tosses and waves and catches in a stunning display of skill. Much of “Second Visit to the Empress” is spent in admiring these banners of individual ability. Soon, Mr. Shen will work out a way to more perfectly braid them together.

Until July 29 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).