Beijing Opera
6 min readThe World-famous “Beijing Opera”
There is a song going like this,”Foreigners call Jingju ‘ Beijing Opera’. They see for the first time that the face of the actor is painted with various colors. The actor makes his appearance on the stage with four beating movements of gong. Wa-They marvel at his beauty and exquisiteness. This is really terrific!”This song, Song of Beijing Opera Facial Make-ups, begins in the style of popular songs while the following “Wa—”is the same as the “exclamation”of the role of jing in the Beijing Opera. Then this shows how foreign friends marvel at the Beijing Opera again in the style of popular songs,”This is really terrific!”
Indeed, the Beijing Opera is so charming that the word “Beijing Opera”comes to their mind as soon as the Chinese drama is mentioned. They almost equal the Chinese drama with the Beijing Opera.
The Beijing Opera came into being around 1840 in Beijing and thus got its named.
Its birth was closely related with the arrival of Hui troupes in Beijing. In 1790, the 55th year during the reign of the Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, many drama troupes from all around the country arrived in Beijing according to the orders of the government to celebrate the emperor’s birthday. The Sanqing Troupe from Yangzhouwas very popular and later other Hui troupes, such as the Sixi Troupe, the Hechun Troupe and the Chuntai Troupe also came to Beijing. These four Hui troupes gradually became strong and were known as the “four biggest Hui troupes”. The four troupes mainly put on performances of the Kun Opera, the Bangzi Opera and the ErhuangOpera and later some artists of the Han Tune performed together with the Hui troupes. In this way, the Beijing Opera developed and took its shape as a unique drama form and soon became one of the most popular drama forms. The themes singing style and unique performing systems of the Beijing Opera were internally connected with the Beijing culture. As a result, it managed to stand out conspicuously in Beijing where there were a great number of drama forms.
The Beijing Opera inherits the rich repertoire of drama pieces since the Chinese drama was born. Different from the Kun Opera, which is all about the life of scholars and the romance of lovers, the Beijing Opera adopts wider range of themes, including historical stories, heroic legends, legal cases, deity stories and love stories. In form, there are drama pieces that mainly involve singing and also pieces that mainly involve fighting and acting. As the Beijing Opera can better meet the needs of common people, it soon became especially popular in the teahouses of Beijing.
The unique performing system of the Beijing Opera has played an important part in its maturity and its improvement in performing skills. It inherits the performing system of the Kun Opera. Most of the performances are highlights from a whole piece of Beijing Opera. In a unit of time, in the theatre there will be five to six or a dozen of drama highlights. These highlights that can best challenge the skills of actors are carefully chosen and as the actors put in a great deal of effort into practicing these highlights, the artistic level of he Beijing Opera in terms of singing, monologue and dialogues, acting and fighting has been improved.
The Beijing Opera has different roles, known as hangdang, such as sheng, dan, jing and chou. These roles are specified according to the characters’ gender, age, identity and vocation as well as the personality. Each role has its special acting formulas and uses special skills in singing, monologues and dialogues, acting and fighting. The role division of the Beijing Opera is more complete than other drama forms and this is also an important symbol of the maturity of Beijing Opera.
The Beijing Opera has a special artistic charm. Its singing style was divided into xipi and erhuang. The former is fast and has many fluctuations, and therefore is suitable for conveying happy and firm emotions; the latter is smooth and solemn, and therefore is suitable for conveying melancholy and sad emotions. The accompany music, called changmian, is divided into acting music and fighting music. In terms of instruments that are used, the former uses mainly huqin accompanied by string instruments and wind instruments while the latter uses mainly drums accompanied by small and big gongs.
The Beijing Opera has made remarkable artistic achievements. It has formed a system of specified and standardized formulas and it exceeds the boundaries of time and space to the maximum, reach the artistic level of “a perfect harmony between form and content”. There are numerous classical Beijing Opera pieces, such as Dingjun Mountain, Sword of Cosmic Blade, Courtesan Yu Tangchun, Gathering of Outstanding Heroes, Empty-City Stratagem, Yang Silang Visiting His Mother and Farewell to My Concubine, and they remain popular for hundreds of years.
The fast development of the Beijing Opera should also be attributed to the large number of Beijing Opera artists, including Tan Xinpei, Yu Shuyan, Yan Jupeng, Ma Lianliang, Tan Fuying, Zhou Xinfang, Gao Qingkui, Li Shaochun who played the role of laosheng(middle-aged or old men roles), Cheng Jixian, Yu Zhenfei, Ye Shenglan who played the role of xiaosheng(roles of young men), Yang Xiaolou, Shang Heyu, Gai Jiaotian who played the role of wusheng(men roles with martial skills), Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Shang Xiaoyun, Xun Huisheng, Zhang Junqiu, Yan Huizhu, Guan Sushuang who played the role of dan (female roles), Jin Shaoshan, Hao Shouchen, HouXirui, Qiu Shengrong, Fang Rongxiang, Yuan Shihai who played the role of jing(roles with painted faces) and Wang Changlin, Xiao Changhua, Ye Shengzhang who played chou(clown roles). Their remarkable artistic talents shone brightly on the stage of the Beijing Opera and played a historical role in the development of the Beijing Opera by inheriting past resources and inspiring later artists.
Mei Lanfang, undoubtedly, was one of the most prominent artists among them. He came from a family in which many family members worked in the Beijing Opera circle.
He began to learn the Beijing Opera at the age of eight and made his first appearance on the stage at eleven. He first studied mainly the role of qingyi and also some skills of the role of daomadan; later he learned the role of huadan. After many years of practice on the stage, he innovated on the role of dan in singing style, monologues and dialogues, dancing, music, costumes and make-up and thus started a unique Beijing Opera style of his own, known as the “Mei style”.
Mei Lanfang was also among the first to introduce the Beijing Opera to other parts of the world.In 1930 he visited America and for the first time he，together with histroupe，presented the Beijing Opera from China，a country of very long history，to the westerners.They put on Beijing Opera performances for 72 days in Seattle，Chicago，Washington，San Francisco and Los Angeles with opera pieces of Fishermen’s Revenge，The Drunken Concubine，The King’s Parting with His Favorite，Chang E Flies to the Moon, Celestial Beauty Scattering Flowers and were extremely popular with the American viewers.
Nowadays, the Beijing Opera has become a symbol of the Chinese culture and it also enjoys a high reputation in many other parts of the world. Some foreigners even learn the Beijing Opera and put on performances, which shows the unique charm of the Beijing Opera.
