Peking Opera Characteristics
2 min readSimilar to the western opera，the peking Opera is a combination of singing，dancing，martial arts，music and literature，so it is also called the Oriental Opera by western people.
Aria-The music for the voice of Peking Opera belongs to the Ban-qiang（a kind of structural style in drama），including two arias of Erhuang and Xipi，so the Peking Opera is also called Pihuang.
The arias commonly used in Peking Opera also include other tunes like the Nanbangzi（an aria in Bangzi Opera），Sipingdiao（an aria in Sichuan Opera），Gaobozi（an aria in AnhuirOpera）and Chuiqiang（the Anhui Opera with flute accompaniment）.
Theme-The Peking Opera is always based on the political and military struggle of an historical theme；the story mostly is taken from |o an historical novel.
Role-Peking Opera has very strict role division.There were seven in the early time:Sheng，Dan，Jing，Mo，Chou，Wuhang and Longtao（Walking-on）.Later it was converged into four:Sheng，Dan，Jing and Chou.Sheng acts the masculine positive role.According to the different age，identity and character，it is also divided into three kinds:Laosheng（Old Men），Xiaosheng（Young Men）and Wusheng（Military Men）.Dan acts the feminine positive role and is also divided into many kinds:Qingyi（the honorable women attired in distinguished dress），Huadan（the innocent and extroverted young ladies or the shrewish and extravagant female），Laodan（Old Ladies），Wudan（Military Women）and so on.Jing acts the supporting role of great-hearted masculine；the characteristic is that their faces must be painted；Therefore Jing is also called Face-Painted Role.Chou acts as a lively，humorous and quick-witted masculine；sometimes they also play the reverse role which is sinister and sly.Each kind of role also has different face-painting and dressing to indicate their identity.
