Peking opera, or Beijing opera, is the most dominant form of Chinese opera. It combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. The art form is preserved in Taiwan, where it is also known as Guójù. It has also spread to other regions such as the United States and Japan.
About Peking opera in brief
Peking opera, or Beijing opera, is the most dominant form of Chinese opera. It combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. Peking opera features four main role types, sheng, dan, jing, and chou. The art form is also preserved in Taiwan, where it is also known as Guójù. It has also spread to other regions such as the United States and Japan. Traditional Peking Opera was denounced as ‘feudalistic’ and ‘bourgeois’ during the Cultural Revolution and replaced with revolutionary operas as a means of propaganda and indoctrination. In recent years, Peking operas have attempted numerous reforms in response to sagging audience numbers. These reforms, which include improving performance quality, adapting new performance elements and performing new and original plays, have been met with mixed success. It has been known by many names in different times and places. The earliest Chinese name, Pihuang, was a combination of the xipi and erhuang melodies. As it increased in popularity, its name became Jingju or Jingxi, which reflected its start in the capital city of Beijing. It is widely known as ‘Skin Show’, referring to the puppet show that originated in Shaanxi province. Much dialogue is carried out in an archaic Mandarin dialects of Chinese, which is recorded in the book Zhongyuan Yinyun Yun. Some scholars believe that the Xipi musical form was derived from the historic Qinqiang, while many conventions of performance, staging and aesthetic principles were retained from Kunquong.
It also absorbed elements from other musical forms such as Zhili operas and local musical art forms. The tune of Han opera is extremely similar to that of Han Opera, therefore Han Opera is widely referred to as ‘peking opera’ The name ‘Peking’ means’skin’ or’skin show’ in Chinese, and is also used in the name of the puppet shows in which the performers are dressed. It originated in the southern Anhui and eastern Hubei, which share the same dialect of Xiajiang Mandarin. It is also called ‘Xipi opera’ by some scholars. It was first performed in 1790 for the eightieth birthday of the Qianlong Emperor on 25 September, but was only made available to the public later. In 1828, several famous Hubai troupes arrived in Beijing and performed jointly with Anhuei troupers. The combination gradually formed Pekingopera’s melodies. The repertoire of PekingOpera includes over 1,400 works, which are based on Chinese history, folklore and, increasingly, contemporary life. The music can be divided into the xīpí and èrhuáng styles. Melodies include arias, fixed-tune melodies and percussion patterns. The name Peking is used to refer to the theatre in Mainland China, which was established in 1949.
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This page is based on the article Peking opera published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
