General Introduction of Beijing Opera

Beijing Opera is known as "Oriental opera", it is a Chinese cultural legacy, it’s named so because of its formation in Beijing.

Beijing Opera has more than 200 years of history. Its source can be traced from several parts of the ancient local drama, especially in the eighteenth century, the most famous local opera was “Hui Opera”(徽班).In 1790, the first “Hui Opera” went to Beijing to attend the emperor's birthday show.Then after, there were quite some “Hui Opera” started their play in Beijing. Hui Opera had strong liquidity and good at absorbing other operas of the repertoire and performance methods of gathering a large number of local operas in Beijing, which makes their performance in art increasing rapidly.

 
Late 19th century, early 20th century, after decades of fusion,Peking Opera be considered to form and become China's biggest Chinese operas.

Peking opera is of rich repertoire, famous performing artists, in terms of theater quantities, audiences, influences,Beijing opera is all ranked number one.

Beijing Opera is a comprehensive performing arts, which combines "singing , reading, do (performance), playing (martial arts), dance (dance)" as a whole, through the program's performance measures, telling the stories, depicts the characters.Opera's role is mainly divided into:Sheng (male), Dan (female), Jing (male), ugly (male/female) four role categories, in addition to a number of supporting roles.

Facial mask is the most distinctive feature in opera art. Characters’ loyalty, fraudulency, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, mostly shown through the mask. For example, red represents characters’ utter devotion, purple symbolizes Loyalty and brave;black reflects the integrity of the noble character, a white person implied vicious and courageous, yellow means brutality, golden and silver colors are mostly used for God, Buddha, ghosts symbolizing the illusory feeling.

Generally speaking,18th century is the first peak period of Peking Opera. At that time, opera performance is both prosperous in folk and royal palace,all people like opera. With the superior material support in royal palace, performers had more facilities to perform,practice and educate young performers,Beijing opera was developing rapidly during that time.

the superior court within the material conditions for the opera performances, wearing regulation, face makeup, stage scenery, etc. to help provide a favorable environment. Court drama and the people with each other, making the unprecedented development of Peking opera.

1920s-1940s is the opera's second peak period, this period of prosperity marked by Peking Opera production of many genres, most notably Mei (Mei Lanfang 1894-1961), Shang (Shang Xiaoyun 1900 -1975), Cheng (Cheng Yanqiu 1904-1958), Xun (Xun Huisheng 1900-1968) the four factions. Different schools had a large number of well-known Peking Opera actors, they were active in Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities of the stage, Peking Opera art flourished.

Mei Lanfang is the world's most famous Peking Opera performing artists, he started learning drama when he was 8 years old, his debut was in 11.In the 50 years of stage career, Mei Lanfang profoundly developed comprehensive performing skills of Dan, singing, reading, dance, music, clothing, makeup and other aspects, he created a unique artistic style. In 1919,Mei Lanfang Opera Troupe went to Japan to perform Peking Opera which marked the first Beijing opera introduction to oversea countries;in 1930, Mei Lanfang visited the United States which turned out to be a great success; in 1934, he was invited to perform in Europe,Since then, Beijing opera is considered as the Chinese drama school by world.

After China's reform and opening up, the Peking Opera have new development. Especially as the Chinese traditional artistic essence,Beijing opera has been supported by Chinese government with great efforts,Nowadays, Beijing's Chang'an theater stages Beijing opera every year, the annual international Beijing opera contest attracted hundreds and thousands of Beijing opera fans around the world.

Next,we'd like to take you to a famous Beijing opera play:The Romance of the Western Chamber,to feel the charms of the opera.

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