Peking Opera Bryan Sit

What it is/History  Peking Opera is a form of traditional Chinese Theater.  Combines  Music  Vocal performance  Dance  Mime  Acrobatics  Originally staged only for the court and was made available for the public later  Arose in 18 th century became popular in 19 th century (particularly in the Qing dynasty)  Uses four main skills.  Song  Speech  Dance-acting  Combat  Women were not allowed to be in the plays.

Performers and Roles  Performers are trained at an early age  Performers are first trained in acrobatics, followed by singing and gestures  There are four major roles  Sheng 生  Dan 旦  Jing 净  Chou 丑

Sheng 生  Main Male Role  Xiaosheng  Sing in a high, shrill voice with occasional breaks to represent the voice changing period of adolescence  Often shown with beautiful women  Laosheng  Have a gentle and cultivated disposition and wear sensible costumes  Hongsheng  Red faced older male  Guan Gong (god of brotherhood, loyalty) or Zhao Kuang-yin (First Emperor of song dynasty)

Dan 旦  Any female role in the opera  Divided in to 5 roles  Laodan – Old women  Wudan – Martial women  Daomadan – Young female warriors  Qingyi – Virtuous and elite women  Huadan – Vivacious and unmarried women

Jing 净  Face painted male role  Will play either primary or secondary roles  15 basic facial patterns but over 1000 variations  Each design is unique

Chou 丑  Male clown role  Likeable, Foolish  Plays secondary or minor roles  Wenchou – civilian roles merchants and jailers  Wuchou – minor military roles

Visual Elements  Actors wear lots of make up  Eyecatching costumes usually made in handicraft embroidery.  Viewers are always seated south of the stage  Actors center themselves on the stage signifying moving north  All characters enter from east and exist on the west  Stage  Used to be square  Now the stage is divided in to two parts front and back

Auditory Elements  Performed using both classical Chinese and modern standard Chinese with some slang.  Four levels of song  Songs with music  Verse recitation  Prose dialogue  Non-verbal vocalizatons

Auditory Elements Six main types of song lyrics  Emotive  Condemnatory  Narrative  Descriptive  Disputive  Shared space separate sensations

Auditory Elements  Music  Music is classified in to two groups  Xipi and erhong  Slow and quick patterns  Main instruments are  Jinghu  Yueqin  Sanxian  Cymbals and gongs

Popular Operas    There are over 1400 operas that are based on Chinese History, Folklore, and contemporary life.  Notable mentions are  Journey To the West  Farewell my Concubine

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