If you have ever witnessed a Chinese opera, there is no doubt that you are aware of the magnificent beauty of the opera performance along with the elaborate costumes and music which amaze and intrigue both the local and foreign audience.
Asia country of multiple cultural heritages, China is enriched with numerous types of operas in which the Beijing Opera has occupied its place as the most popular and magnificent opera genre.
The origin of the Beijing Opera dates back to the Qin Dynasty which accounts for nearly 200 years of history.
The ‘Four Great Anhui Drama Troupes’ brought an opera to Beijing to celebrate the eightieth birthday of the Emperor Qianlong and it is considered as the origin of the Beijing Opera.
It has evolved to the present Beijing Opera with the combination of different local operas influenced by the different dialects and traditions. Even though this is famous with the name of Beijing Opera, this genre has not only spread in Beijing, but all over the world.
The four parts of an Opera
The Beijing opera performance consists of four parts such as singing, recitation, acting and fighting which are known as ‘Chang’, ‘Nian’, ‘Zuo’ and ‘Da’ in Chinese.
‘Chang’ means singing according to a rhythm while ‘Nian’ means the dialogues between the characters and monologues.
Facial expressions, motions and body posturing come under ‘Zuo’ and ‘Da’ refers to acrobatics and martial arts. These four types have blended together and made a comprehensive acting art with highly symbolic and stylised content.
As a result of this, no theatrical equipment is needed to perform as there are unique symbolic ways to perform an opera.
For example, a paddle can symbolise a boat and a whip can symbolise riding a horse. Though these motions create an exaggeration, it never fails to overwhelm the audience.
The four main roles
There are four main roles in the Beijing Opera which are ‘Sheng’( Male Role), ‘Dan’ (Female Role), ‘Jing’ (Painted Male Face) and ‘Chou’ (The Comedy Role). Each role has its own vocal techniques, expressions and vocabulary of gestures which are powerfully portrayed on the stage during the performance. Apart from the role, ‘Dang’, the other three types of roles are played by the male characters.
Sheng Role
This role has several sub-categories such as ‘Laosheng’ (Old characters), ‘Xiansheng’ (Young characters) and ‘Wusheng’ (Acrobatic characters). ‘Laosheng’ is played by males who have gentle and polished characteristics to portray middle aged or old characters of scholars and high-ranking officials in the military.
‘Xiansheng’ is played by young actors who have a high pitched voice in order to indicate their young spirit. No beard is worn and clothes are elaborated to represent the young warrior or the ordinary young men in the society.
‘Wusheng’ actors are acrobats and their acting skills in fighting is highlighted during the performance. Most of the time, they represent young military officials who are good at fighting.
This character requires a pleasant and deep voice but the actor is not trained in singing. Ma Lianlian, Zhou Xinfang and Ye Shenglan were the famous characters who played Shou during the 20th century.
Dan role
The most outstanding feature of this role is that it is played by female artists who have to appear more feminine than any woman by looks and acting skills.
This role can be divided in to four parts such as ‘Qinyi’ (the modest and virtuous), ‘Huadan’ (flirtatious), ‘Wudan’ (the female acrobat) and ‘Laodan’ (an old woman). The character ‘Qingyi’ represents a gentle and soft hearted woman who is graceful in her movements with a high-pitched voice in singing.
‘Huadan’ is the flirtatious character with mischievous and coquettish qualities but attractive with her eye movements. Her costumes are colourful and a red handkerchief is carried in the actress’s hand.
‘Wudan’ is the female acrobat and she requires a high degree of acrobats to perform this character successfully. ‘Laodan’ is the old woman who is represented as a simple, old woman with a bent back, natural voice and no makeup.
Jing role
This role is played by courageous and resourceful actors often acting for the characters such as judges, high ranking army generals, gods and supernatural beings. Seeing a Jing character for the first time, would amaze the audience because the face and forehead of this character is painted with flowers and colourful patterns.
A Jing actor wears a heavy costume and a head dress using the colours of red, white, black and blue which stand for good, treacherous, discourteous and wild characteristics respectively.
‘Yuan Shiha’ has earned the love and respect of opera audiences as one of most talented actors who have played the role, Jing, on the Opera stage.
Chou role
The Chou is the comedy role of the opera stage. He is not a fool but a serious or an evil character with a slightly wicked nature. This role uses colloquial speech throughout the act in order to keep the amusement of the audience.
He has the liberty to improvise and it is a part of his technique. Chou acts for characters such as a jailer, servant, merchant or scholar. Xiao Changhua and Ma Fulu were the most famous actors who played Chou on the opera stage.
Facial make-up
Facial make-up of the characters occupies a significant place in Beijing Opera as a symbol of the uniqueness of the characters. Audiences that are old hands of Beijing Opera can recognise all the role types and characters at a first glance as a result of their unique facial makeup and costumes.
The facial makeup of Shang and Dang are simple whereas Jing and Chou have more complex makeup with complicated patterns. Facial make-up of Jing and Chou is painted similar to the make-up patterns used in Opera masks in order to be visible as a mask, even though they never wear one on the stage.
For example colour red is used for the characters who are loyal, courageous and brave, yellow is used for characters who are devious and white is used to portray characters who are untrustworthy while black, blue and green colour faces are used to connote neutral meanings.
However, the character Chou is always painted with a white colour patch on the face which helps the audience to differentiate him from the other characters.
Shang and Dang characters are famous for their unique ways of highlighting the eye which are known as ‘Miaomei’, ‘Diaomei’ and ‘Hua Yanquan’ with the meaning of painting the eyebrows, raising the eyebrows and decorating the eye area with designs.
In this way, facial makeup adds a different narrative to the characters on the opera stage to manifest their distortion, vividness and allegorical impressions.
There are around 3600 types of plays in Beijing opera which can be divided into main three categories such as, Traditional Beijing Opera, New Historical Opera and Modern Opera.
In the early years, many stories were based on various types of historical narrations, romantic stories, war incidents, mythical tales and moral stories but the trend showed a deviation into plays with the revolutionary and contemporary themes after establishing the People’s Republic in China in 1949.
This revolution made Beijing Opera popular not only in Beijing but all over the world including East Asia, Europe and the United States. In 2010, UNESCO declared the Beijing opera as ‘An intangible Cultural Heritage of China’ considering its historical and cultural value as an influential and comprehensive performing art which will never fail to amuse the audience.