Beijing Opera Is The Representative Of Chinese Opera

Beijing Opera is known as "Oriental opera", it is a Chinese cultural legacy, it's named so because of its formation in Beijing.

Beijing Opera has more than 200 years of history. Its source can be traced from several parts of the ancient local drama, especially in the eighteenth century, the most famous local opera was "Hui Opera".In 1790, the first "Hui Opera" went to Beijing to attend the emperor's birthday show.Then after, there were quite some "Hui Opera" started their play in Beijing. Hui Opera had strong liquidity and good at absorbing other operas of the repertoire and performance methods of gathering a large number of local operas in Beijing, which makes their performance in art increasing rapidly.

Being the representative of Chinese opera, Beijing opera, reputedly the quintessence of China, has a time-honored history of more than 200 years, which is popular among the world for its sophisticated performance, complicated as well as macro momentum.

Beijing opera is a form of traditional Chinese opera which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics together. It utilizes the skills of speech, song, dance, and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive, rather than realistic, which are required to master for the performers since they are very young.
Roles in Beijing Opera could be classified into Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou, each of which has numerous subtypes. Sheng is the main male role in Beijing opera, which has several subtypes. The laosheng is a dignified older role which has a gentle and cultivated disposition and wears sensible costumes in the opera. Young male characters are called xiaosheng which are often involved with beautiful women by virtue of the handsome and young image. The wusheng is a martial character for roles involving combat which are highly trained in acrobatics.

The Dan refers to any female role in Beijing opera. Dan roles are generally divided into five subtypes. Old women were played by laodan, martial women wudan, young female warriors daomadan, virtuous and elite women qingyi, and vivacious and unmarried women are huadan. The Jing is the male role with a painted face in the opera, which will play either primary or secondary roles according to the particular troupe. This type of role will entail a forceful character, so a Jing must have a strong voice and be able to exaggerate gestures. The Chou is a male clown role, which usually plays secondary roles in a troupe.

Mei Lanfang, the most prestigious artist in China, who has made great contribution to the development of Beijing Opera and is really a great honor for every Chinese.