Extract From My Theatre Blog: Beijing Opera

After deciding to look into my culture from my Chinese perspective and background, I asked my mother what type of theatre practices she had experienced when she was growing up in China. She noted the most memorable and widespread was Chinese Opera. Beijing Opera, or Peking Opera (京剧), is among the most well-recognized of Chinese theatrical practices. 

History:
Despite the name, the Beijing Opera did not originate in Beijing. The Beigjing opera came into being in 1790 when the four famous opera troupes of the Anhui province gathered in Beijing to perform for the birthday of Emperor Qianlong. After a while, the performances became public. In 1828, the Anhui opera troupes began to perform with opera troupes from Hubei, and the two forms gradually developed Beijing Opera's main melodies. The theatrical practice of the Beijing Opera was originally male-only, as women were prohibited from performing.


Singing:
In earlier years, in order to sing over the orchestra, singers would develop a loud, piercing tone that could project over the orchestra. It is a fairly distinct type of singing that can seem displeasing to some western viewers. Chinese opera as a whole has developed into its own discipline of singing. There are four levels of song: Song with music, recitation of verse, dialogue in prose, and non-verbal vocalizations. The three main singing techniques used in Beijing Opera are breath control, pronunciation, and special Beijing opera pronunciation. Non-verbal vocalizations would likely be the most unfamiliar of the song levels. It refers to songs that are not made up of actual words.

Repertoire:   
The Repertoire of Beijing Opera consists of nearly 1500 works. Most of the plays are derived from Chinese historical novels and traditional stories. They are actually fairly informational towards the history and culture of China. The plays are traditionally categorized into two types: Civil and Martial. Civil plays are more oriented towards plot and character, while martial plays are more geared toward combat and acrobatic feats. Martial plays tend to be more serious than civil plays.

Performing Roles:
One of the most distinctive features of Beijing Opera is the strict use of a set of characters. The characters are categorized into four main roles that differ in age, sex, and social class. They are Sheng (male role), Jing (painted-face male role), Chou (male comedic role), and Dan (female role).

Sheng: Sheng literally translates to person in Chinese. It refers to the main male role of the play. There are numerous subcategories for this type of character. Laosheng refers to old, dignified, sensible, wise characters (my automatic thought is Yoda). Laosheng are generally dressed in sensible clothing. Xiaosheng refers to a young sheng. They are generally high-voiced and wear elaborate costumes. Wusheng is a sheng who is extremely skilled in acrobatics and is highly agile. They often have roles involving combat, and they have a normal voice. Troupes always have one laosheng actor, a xiaosheng actor, and often have a secondary laosheng actor.
 

Pictures of Sheng Roles

Jing: The Jing is the painted face male role, who can either be a supporting or primary role. The jing is generally a forceful and strong character with exaggerated movements. There are 15 basic types of facial patterns for jing make up, but 1000 can exist in variation. Examples include, red to denote loyalty and goodness, white to denote evil, and black to denote integrity. The three main Jing role will either focus on singing, physicality, or acrobatics.

 Pictures of Jing Roles and Jing Make-up

Chou: Chou is literally translated to mean "ugly" in Chinese. The Chou Character is the comedic clown character. Chou actors must be highly skilled, because the Chou role requires a strong voice, acrobatic skill, and comedic acting.  The character itself is highly versatile in terms of status and clothing. The make-up of the Chou is distinct from the Jing make-up in that there is white patch around the nose and eyes. The Chou character would often sing improvised lines in traditional Beijing opera, but much less of that is prevalent in contemporary Beijing Opera. The Chou dialect also tends to be less formal than the other roles. The two types of Chou roles are categorized in the same categories as the two types of Beijing Opera plays: Wenchou (civil) and Wuchou (martial). 

Pictures of Chou Role

Dan: The Dan is the main female role in Beijing Opera. The role is divided into 6 subtypes: Qing Yi (modest, virtuous), Hua Dan (flirtatious, sensual), Gui Men Dan (mature, married girl), Dao Ma Dan (female warrior, female general), Wu Dan (female fighting warrior), and Lao Dan (older woman). Troupes will generally have a young Dan for main role, and an older Dan for supporting roles. The role is highly selective in that the Dan performer must have a good voice, looks, and height. The Qing Yi Dan role is one of the roles most commonly associated with Beijing opera with its high piercing voice. Traditionally the role was only played by men, as women were prohibited from performing. The men would use a technique to imitate the bound feet of Chinese women.   

Pictures of Dan Roles

Movement: 
Gestures and movement are another very distinctive part of Peking Opera aesthetics. They emphasize everyday, well-established gestures, such as stroking a bear, opening a door, eating, and drinking. These are very important in identifying characters. Round, circular movements are heavily utilized while sharp movements are avoided. Much training on behalf of the performersis required to master and perfect these movements. Movements are aimed to convey meaning and beauty rather than reality.

Costumes
Costumes and clothing are key to distinguishing the different characters as well as creating a distinction to the Chinese Opera. The costumes are very lavish and filled with intricate colors. However, a system has been developed so that the different costumes will denote different characters. All high-ranking or high-class characters wear a robe called a mang. Soldier and warrior characters wear armor called Kao. All characters also wear headwear of some sort. Often, especially for high-ranking characters, they will wear an elaborate head dress or hat. Colors will automatically denote different characters. For example, high ranking characters wear red while low-ranking characters wear blue. Masks are also commonly used alongside the intricate face-painting in Beijing opera. A technique known as changing faces is used to display a characters disposition or development. This technique can take years of extensive training to master and perfect. There are four techniques to changing faces: 

Blowing dust - the actor blows a black dust hidden in his palm or beard, and it sticks to his face, creating a change in color and texture.

Manipulating beard - the actor changes the color of his beard while it is being manipulated.

Mop - the actor mops greasepaint over his face hidden in his costume in order to change a facial expression.


Pulling-down masks - the actor pulls a mask that was hidden over his head so that it is over his face.

Stage:
The stage of Beijing Opera is often very simple. The audience is always seated south of the stage. Performers always move towards "Center North" at the beginning of the performance. They always enter in the east and exit in the west. This is very symbolic of the aspect of nature in Beijing Opera tradition. Very few props are used, and those that are can be used to convey the meaning of larger settings. For example, an oar may represent a boat. The stage almost always has a boat and a chair which can be transformed by convention into various other objects.

Personal Western Impressions:

• I find that the use of colors is an elegant way to denote characters. With different arrangements of colors being able to say so much about a character, its almost a literal version of painting a character.
• The notion that a performer must always use four main skills of: Song, Speech, Dance-Acting, and Combat/Acrobatics echoes that of certain aspects of the theatre I have learned. For example, and actors tools are imagination, voice, and body. 
• Chinese martial arts seem to be a key influence on Chinese Opera. 
• What sticks out to me is training of the performers. The performer must train from an early age in order to perfect a single role such as laosheng or xiaosheng. 
• Even with the help of my five-years of Chinese classes, I still found it very hard to find videos of Beijing Opera performances. It is very hard to find full videos of performances so I was only able to catch small glimpses of performances. It may be interesting to note that, when I typed in English, I found far fewer videos with singing than when I typed in Chinese. 
• Despite the many similarities with western opera and musical theatre, I find Beijing Opera performances to be very alien to me, and I feel the same would apply to most western viewers. Similarities in structure still exist, and language might be the greatest barrier, but what struck me as most foreign were the elements that make it distinct. The singing was always done in very high piercing registers with a very nasal tone, especially for the male-Dan roles. The overall effect on myself as a primarily western viewer was that of discomfort. This may also be related to the video recording itself rather than the opera. The costumes were more intricate than I had imagined, and I could still see he great difficult involved in the movement with the bulky costumes. The movement was much more subtle than I had expected, but still much more exaggerated than what I am used to. 
• The civil plays seem to cohere much more closely to the western theatre I am used to, while the martial plays are much more foreign to me. 
• In many ways I feel that my search for videos was limited and incomplete, and I require a greater perspective on the Beijing Opera than can be found with a computer.
• The use of percussion is very extensive. Far more extensive than I have made clear above.
• I looked into numerous videos under the following search terms:
• Beijing Opera
• Peking Opera
• Farewell my Concubine
• Havoc in Heaven
• 京剧
• 京剧老生
• 京剧生
• 京剧文丑
• 京剧净 

Here are some videos I found and used for research: