In the evening of Day 3 (after a long day visiting Tiananmen Square and all the sights there, and then visiting the Forbidden City), we end the day at the Beijing Opera.
The opera is a form of traditional Chinese theatre which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. Beijing opera was born when the "Four Great Anhui Troupes" brought Anhui opera, or what is now called Huiju, to Beijing in 1790 for the birthday of the Qianlong Emperor. It was originally staged for the court and only made available to the public later. In 1828, several famous Hubei troupes arrived in Beijing and performed jointly with Anhui troupes. The combination gradually formed Beijing opera's melodies. Beijing opera is generally regarded as being fully formed by 1845. The form was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China.
Beijing Opera presents dramatic plays and figures mainly by infusing four artistic methods: singing, dialogue, dancing, and martial art. Singing is utilized to intensify the appeal of the art by all kinds of tones. Dialogue is the complement of singing which is full of musical and rhythm sensations. Dancing refers to the body movements requiring high performing skills. Martial art is the combination and transformation of traditional Chinese combat exercises with dances.
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| Beijing Opera |
The opera was initially an exclusively male pursuit. The Qianlong Emperor had banned all female performers in Beijing in 1772. The appearance of women on the stage began unofficially during the 1870s. Female performers began to impersonate male roles and declared their equality with men. They were given a venue for their talents when Li Maoer, himself a former Beijing-opera performer, founded the first female Beijing-opera troupe in Shanghai. By 1894, the first commercial venue showcasing female performance troupes appeared in Shanghai. This encouraged the creation of other female troupes which gradually increased in popularity. As a result, theatre artist Yu Zhenting petitioned for the lifting of the ban after the founding of the Republic of China in 1911. This was accepted and the ban was lifted in 1912 although male Dan continued to be popular after this period.
After the Chinese revolutionary war ended in 1949-1950, Beijing opera became a focal point of identity for the Communist government by bringing all art into line with Communist ideology, and "to make art and literature a component of the whole revolutionary machine". To this end, dramatic works without Communist themes were considered subversive, and were ultimately banned during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The use of opera as a tool to transmit Communist ideology reached its climax during the Cultural Revolution with Beijing opera being denounced as "feudalistic" and '"bourgeois". It was replaced with 8 revolutionary "model operas". The "model operas" were considered one of the great achievements of the Cultural Revolution and were meant to express Chairman Mao's view that "art must serve the interests of the workers, peasants, and soldiers and must conform to proletarian ideology". After the Cultural Revolution, these transformations were largely undone.
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| Beijing Opera |
During the second half of the 20th century, Beijing opera witnessed a steady decline in audience numbers. This was attributed both to a decrease in performance quality and an inability of the traditional opera form to capture modern life. The opera attempted numerous reforms in response to sagging audience numbers, including improving performance quality, adapting new performance elements, and performing new and original plays.
Whew! That's been quite a day! Time to get some sleep and rest up for our visit to the Great Wall of China.
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