Beijing Opera

Peking Opera is also called Ping Opera or Jingxi. The characters are divided into Sheng, Dan, Jing, and Chou . The stories are mostly from history. Actors perform by singing, speaking, acting, and fighting . How to Perform Beijing Operas Peking opera is a synthesis of stylized action, singing, dialogue, and mime, acrobatic fighting, and dancing to represent a story or depict different characters and their feelings of gladness, anger, sorrow, happiness, surprise, fear, and sadness. In Peking opera, there are four main types of roles: sheng (male), dan (young female), jing (painted face, male), and chou (clown, male or female) . The characters may be loyal or treacherous, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, their images being vividly manifested. The repertoire of Peking opera is mainly engaged in fairy tales of preceding dynasties, important historical events, emperors, ministers and generals, geniuses and great beauties, from the ancient times to Yao, Shun, Yu, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period and the dynasties of Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing. The music of Peking opera is that of the "plate and cavity style".Its melody with harmonious rhythms is graceful and pleasing to the ears. The melody may be classified into two groups: " Xipi " and " erhong ", guiding pattern, original pattern, slow pattern, quick pattern, and desultory pattern being their chief patterns. The performance is accompanied by a tune played on wind instruments, percussion instruments, and stringed instruments, the chief musical instruments being jinghu (a two-stringed bowed instrument with a high register), yueqin (a four-stringed plucked instrument with a full-moon-shaped sound box), Sanxian (a three-stringed plucked instrument), Suona horn, flute, drum, big gong, cymbals, and small gong. The costumes in Peking opera are graceful, magnificent, elegant, and brilliant , and are mostly made in handicraft embroidery. As the traditional Chinese patterns are adopted, the costumes are of a high aesthetic value. The types of facial make-up in Peking opera are rich and various, depicting different characters and remarkable images; therefore, they are highly appreciated. Moreover, there are numerous fixed editions of facial make-up. Roles in Beijing Opera The roles in Beijing Opera (Peking Opera) had seven categories during its early age, divided according to characters in the opera. They were Sheng, Dan, Jing, Mou, Chou, Wuhang, and Longtao. With the development of Beijing opera, it w