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Beijing Opera
Theater Arts – Beijing Opera
During the 18th-19th century Peking opera or more commonly known as Beijing Opera, become highly popular 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. 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. A combination of music, song, dance, dialogue and combat are used to the fullest extent to portray the storyline which majorly revolves around Chinese ancient 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. 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. The extensive routines they followed each day, consisted of getting up early to begin training in acting, acrobatics, and combat. The senior students perform in the evening theaters. 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. These 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. In the early 1800s they were eventually joined by the Hubei tropes and it then came to its complete form in mid 1800s. They made some changes in the art of actually creating a mixture of various unique dance forms and music. 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. This character is gentle and sophisticated and the costumes worn by them are more subtle. 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 sings in a loud and shrill voice.
In the later years, the male actors began painting their faces. These characters were known as Jing. They were usually supporting characters and were forceful so they had to have a heavy voice and exaggerated expression. 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. The character of Chou hardly got a chance to sing when compared 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.
The drama was being 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 melodies can be classified as arias, fixed and percussion. In Taiwan, it carries the name of: Guoju.
The Anhui troupe became more wide-spread in popularity after the forming Beijing opera and received invitations to perform in various kingdoms. 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. 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.
Before and during the Cultural Revolution, Beijing opera was used as a vehicle for providing information, teachings, and political ideology; today it is predominantly a form of entertainment, as it was in the past.
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