Peking Opera

Peking Opera

Peking Opera is a performance art that integrates singing, recital, acting, and martial arts, with the first two being song forms and the last two being dance forms. The dramatic artistic effects are achieved through routines of hand, eye, body, and foot movements.

With roots dating back to 1840-1860, Peking Opera assimilated various local folk music styles such as Hui, Han, Kunqu, and Shaanxi operas. The performers primarily sing and recite in the Beijing dialect. Today, Peking Opera is the most popular and influential form of stage performance in China and an important representation of traditional Chinese culture. It is wide- ly regarded as the national opera of China.

Peking Opera's repertoire primarily draws from Chinese history. It has standardized artistic expressions in text, perfor- mance, music, and set designs. Famous plays include Farewell My Concubine, the Ruse of the Empty City, and taking tiger Mountain by Strategy. The vocal music mainly consists of erhuang (adapted from folk tunes of Anhui and Hubei) and xipi (from Shaanxi tunes). Accompanying these are two types of instruments: wenchang (civilian plays) with huqin (a two- stringed fiddle) and flute, and wuchang (martial plays) with bangu (a Chinese frame drum) and big gong. The characters in Peking Opera are generally divided into four types of roles: the sheng (male roles), dan (female roles), jing ( male roles with painted face), and chou (clown or a negative character). The sheng includes positive male roles excluding the hualian (the mighty character with heavily painted face) and chou and is further divided into laosheng (a dignified older role), wusheng (a martial character for roles involving combat), and xiaosheng (young male character). The dan refers to any positive female role and includes qingyi/zhengdan (virtuous and elite women), huadan (vivacious and unmarried women), guimendan (young, good-looking woman from a wealthy family), daomadan/wu- dan (young female warriors), caidan (clownish and cunning females), and laodan (old women). The jing mainly refers to male characters with unique personalities or appearances. This category features colorful make-up and low, powerful voices, full of primal energy. A chou, depicted by a patch of white on the face, is a humorous character. Facial makeup is a distinc- tive feature of Peking opera, with red representing loyalty and bravery, black representing wisdom and fierceness, blue and green representing grass-roots heroes, yellow and white repre- senting cunning and wickedness, and gold and silver represent- ing gods and spirits.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Pe- king Opera has been widely promoted overseas and is highly regarded as a cultural envoy. Peking Opera performances by master artists like Mei Lanfang have helped remedy Western biases against Chinese culture, promoted cultural exchanges between China and the West, and had a profound impact on the development of theater and film arts in East Asia, Europe and the United States. The Peking Opera performance system named after Mei Lanfang is recognized as a representative of the oriental drama performing systems. In 2010, Peking Opera was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

京剧

中国国粹京剧是一种融合唱、念、做、打的表演艺术，融汇徽剧、汉调、昆曲、秦腔及其他地方民间曲调，并结合北京的语言特点而形成。京剧自1840年至1860年之间形成并流传至今，是中国影响最大的戏曲剧种，也是中华民族传统文化的重要表现形式，享有中国“国剧”的美誉。

京剧以历史故事为主要演出内容，在剧本、表演、音乐、舞台美术等各个方面都有一套规范化的艺术表现形式， 著名剧目有《霸王别姬》《空城计》《智取威虎山》等。京剧的主要声腔为二黄、西皮，伴奏分胡琴、长笛主奏的文场和班鼓、大锣主奏的武场两大类。现今流行的京剧角色主要分为生、旦、净、丑四种，其中，“生”是除了花脸和丑角以外的男性正面角色的统称，分老生、武生、小生；“旦”是女性正面角色的统称，分青衣（正旦）、花旦、闺门旦、刀马旦、武旦、彩旦、老旦；“净”大多是性格、品质或相貌上有些特异的男性人物，化妆用脸谱，音色洪亮，风格粗犷；“丑”扮演喜剧角色，故在鼻梁上抹一小块白粉。脸谱是京剧的鲜明特色，红脸代表忠勇，黑脸代表智猛，蓝脸和绿脸代表草莽英雄，黄脸和白脸代表狡诈凶恶，金脸和银脸代表神妖。京剧表演的艺术手法中，唱和念属于“歌”，做和打属于“舞”，它们通过既定的手、眼、身、脚动作编排实现戏剧艺术效果。

中华人民共和国成立后，京剧作为国家文化使者在海外广泛传播并深受赞誉，以京剧艺术大师梅兰芳为代表的京剧海外演出改变了当时西方民众对中国文化的偏见，增进了中西方文化交流，对东亚、欧美的戏剧和电影艺术发展产生深远影响。梅兰芳京剧表演体系被视为东方戏剧表演体系的代表。2010年，“京剧”列入联合国教科文组织人类非物质文化遗产代表作名录。