Characteristics of Beijing Opera Costumes
2 min readBeijing Opera costumes are called Xingtou or, more popularly, Xifu in Chinese. The origins of Beijing Opera costumes can be traced back to the mid-14th century, when operatic precursors first began experimenting with large ornate articles of clothing.
Rules of Costume Tradition
Anachronisms are allowable.A performer’s costume primarily designates his or her role on the stage no matter when or where the action takes place. Characters, whether they are from ancient times or in pre-modern China, appear on the Chinese opera stage wearing costimes auitab1e to their roles.
Regardless of which season is being depicted in performance, the opera costume is the same. Weather is described in every scene and ist be made clear by the actor’s movements, rather than his clothing. Beijing Opera costumes enable the audience to distinguish a character’s sex and status at first glance. By means of a subtle difference, opera costumes often give expression to sharp distinctions between good and evil or, preferably, loyal and wicked characters. Oblong Wings (chizi) attached to a gauze hat indicate a loyal official. In contrast,a corrupt official is made to wear a gauze hat with rhomboidal wings.
Facial Design
Chinese opera performers mainly have two methods of makeup: masks and facial painting. The frequent on-stage change of masks, without the audience noticing it, is a special technique known as changing faces. Opera facial painting falls into four main categories-personality makeup(facial designs, painted faces or Lian Pu), decorative makeup (decorated faces), mood makeup (changing facia designs), and pictographic makeup (animal-like facial designs).
Personality nakeup, or Lian Pu, refers to facial designs for jing and chou roles. It originated from daily life experience, describing such changes of expression as white for fear, red for shyness, dark for suntan, and sallow for illnss. Most facial designs attach great importance to the eyes and eyebrows.
Red, yellow, white, black, purple, green and silver are the main colors used for facial designs to represent different characters.
For instance, red stands for loyal, courageous and upright people; white for sinister and cunning officials; and golden and silvery colors for gods and ghosts.
The chou actors can be recognized by the patch of white in various shapes painted around the eyes and nose.Sometimes these patches are outlined in black，hence the term Xiao lHua Lian（partly painted face）.
