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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. The Beijing Opera had reached such levels that it was the height of entertainment, specific to the royal court and later was made accessible to public. Native to the Anhui and Hubei province this art later became the cultural jewel of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. Throughout several decades its fame crossed the Great Wall of China and reached into countries like Taiwan, Japan and 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 dialect used in dialogue delivery is archaic dialect. Since it has a great historical value the actors really worked hard in order 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. The extensive routines they followed each day, consisted of getting up early to begin training in acting, acrobatics, and combat. The senior students were allowed to perform during the evening theaters shows. If an unfortunate student made a mistake, then the group of students associated with them were punished with bamboo cane but methods in training became less painful during the 1900s. The opera schools were shut down during the Japanese invasion in 1931 but again reestablished in 1952. There are several famous schools, that are very popular in this art and the most renowned are: Ma Lianliang, Qi Lintong 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. The Beijing opera has four main characters. The Sheng is the male lead role with 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 God of Wars is the Laosheng character is further categorized as Guan Gong and Zhao Kuang-yin, is 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. They were usually supporting characters and were forceful so they had to have a heavy voice and exaggerated expression. The female lead is played by ’Dan’ and can be divided into five types. Laodan was played by aged ladies, Wudan was played by middle aged women depicting married women, Daomadan were brave female warriors, Qingyi were righteous women and Huadan were young and innocent girls. The role Qingyi and Huadan together is known as Huashan.
Chou is the male clown role played. It was a minor role to add some humor to serious 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. On the whole this art form cut down on the voice and singing .Acrobatics came to its full form in Beijing opera. So actors who couldn’t sing much but knew acrobatics well were easily taken into the performing troupe.
Each play scene is always accompanied with music. They use two very distinct styles of music, which are; the Xipi, formed by the Anhui tropes and also Erhuang, formed by the Hubei tropes. Because of the type of music used, research shows that 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. In Taiwan, it carries the name of: Guoju.
The Anhui troupe gained name and fame after forming Beijing opera and were invited to various kingdoms to perform. Empress Dowager Cixi encouraged this art and became a great admirer of it. Qianlong Emperor had banned female actors, so the performing troupes consisted of only males at first. However, it was in the 1870s, that Li Maoer, a former Beijing opera performer, began a troupe of female actresses in the art, 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.
Legend of the Guan Gong: Episode 01
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