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Beijing Opera

Theater Arts - Beijing Opera

It was during the 18th-19th century Peking opera or more commonly referred to as the ’Beijing Opera’, flourished in the Qing Dynasty. It had attained such levels that it was specifically being performed in the royal court and later was opened to public. Native to the Anhui and Hubei province this art later became the cultural jewel of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. Over the period of time its fame crossed the Great Wall of China and spread to countries like Japan, Taiwan and eventually America.

The movements of the beautiful dancers are very elegant and graceful. Dialogues, music, song, dance and combat are used to the fullest extent to illustrate a storyline which majorly revolves around Chinese age old folklore and history. The Beijing opera performers wear bright colored outfits to be the center of attraction on sparingly decorated stage. The type of dialogue presented and used is archaic dialect. Because of it tremendous historical value the actors work tirelessly to respect and carry on the tradition. People who train to be the actors started at a very young age which lasted for up to seven years, depending on permission from the parents. The teacher expect their students to eventually pay them back by the future performances. Daily routine consisted of early rise followed by training in acting, acrobatics, and combat. The senior students were allowed to perform during the evening theaters shows. Upon committing a mistake the whole bunch of students were punished with bamboo cane but training became milder during the 1900s. These schools were shut down during the Japanese invasion in 1931 but again reestablished in 1952. The renowned schools popular in this art are the Ma Lianliang school, the Qi Lintong school and the Cheng Yanqiu school.

The Four Anhui Troupes was responsible for the birth of Beijing opera in the late 1700s. They were joined by the Hubei tropes in the early 1800s and came to its complete form in mid 1800s. This form of art is actually a mixture of various dance forms and music with a unique twist. There are four leading characters in Beijing opera. Sheng, plays the main male role along with his subtype Laosheng, old and wise version, Xiaosheng, the younger version and Wusheng, the warrior version. He is gentle and sophisticated and the costumes they were are decorated in a subtle fashion. The Laosheng character is further categorized as Guan Gong, God of War and Zhao Kuang-yin, the first emperor of the Song Dynasty. Xiaosheng using a loud shrill voices for his singing.

It became a new tradition in the later years, for the male actors to paint their faces. Along with this new tradition, the characters began being known as Jing. Because they were often the supporting characters to the lead male role, they had to have strong, heavy voice and had to use over exaggerated expressions as they performed. Dan is the female lead and is divided into five types. Wudan was played by middle aged women depicting married women, Huadan were young and innocent girls, Laodan was played by aged ladies, Qingyi were righteous women and Daomadan were brave female warriors. Huashan is the role Qingyi and Huadan play together.

Chou is the male clown role played. He has a minor role but adds some humor relief during some of the more somber scenes. Chou is the character that will barely have the part of singing, if you compare them to the Kunqu opera which was its inspiration. Overall, this type of amazing and entertaining art form, basically down played the amount of singing for certain characters and acrobatics came to its full form in Beijing opera. Therefore the actors that did not do much singing and were highly talented in acrobatics, were eagerly welcomed into the performing troupe.

Each play scene is always accompanied with music. The two different styles of music being played are Xipi, created by the Anhui tropes and Erhuang, created by the Hubei tropes. Based on this music, the earliest name of Beijing opera was Pihuang which changed according to geographical location and time. The different melodies uses are categorized as, arias, fixed and percussion. It was known as Guoju in Taiwan.

The Anhui troupe became more wide-spread in popularity after the forming Beijing opera and received invitations to perform in various kingdoms. One of the earliest great admirers of this form of opera was, Empress Dowager Cixi and she encouraged and supported it. The performing troupes consisted of only males at first as the Qianlong Emperor had banned female actors. But in the 1870s, a former Beijing opera performer, Li Maoer started a female troupe, which persuaded others to take the lead and finally the ban was lifted in 1912.

Beijing opera productions today, are basically identical to those performed by troupes prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949.

It was during the Cultural Revolution that the Beijing operas was used as a main forced used to provide information, teachings, and political beliefs; today it is predominantly a form of entertainment, as it was in the past.
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