What kind of skill is face-changing in Sichuan opera?

It is a performance masterpiece of Sichuan opera, which was first used in the 1930s in the traditional opera "The House of Returning to the Righteousness", in which a chivalrous man named Bei Rong changed his face several times in order to save a person's life. Since then, this novelty has been perpetuated. Sichuan Opera's "face-changing" is known as a "national treasure, a masterpiece, and a wonder", and is generally not publicized.

The performance of Sichuan Opera is full of life, vivid and lively, funny and humorous. In order to better portray the characters, Sichuan Opera artists have created many stunts such as face-changing, hiding knives, drilling fire rings, opening the eyes of the wise and so on, which are hot and lively and interesting during the performance, forming a major feature of Sichuan Opera.

Face-changing is one of the special techniques of Sichuan opera. It is a romantic expression of the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters in the play. The methods of face-changing can be roughly divided into three - face-wiping, face-blowing and face-pulling.

Wiping the face: oil paint is applied to a specific part of the face, and when it is time to wipe the face with the hand, it can be changed into another kind of face. If you want to change all of it, the oil paint is applied to the forehead or eyebrows, and if you want to change only the lower half of the face, the oil paint can be applied to the face or nose.

Blowing face: only suitable for powdered cosmetics, such as gold dust, toner, silver powder, etc., the actor will be placed in the powdered cosmetics on the stage in a specific location of the container or the characters used in the wine cups and other vessels, the actor to do a crouch or other specific dance movements, take the opportunity to put the face close to the vessel, eyes closed, closed, blowing with the mouth, the powder pounced on the face, and immediately turned into another color of the face! .

The face pulling: a more complicated method of face changing. It is beforehand the face painted on a sheet of silk, cut, each face is tied a silk thread. And then a sheet of several sheets of the face together on the face, each face has a specific silk thread, silk thread is tied to a smooth and unobtrusive place in the clothes, with the needs of the show, under the cover of the dance movement, and then a sheet of rapid tear down. This method is skillful, clean and sharp.

Mask face, according to the actual needs of the actors in advance will be different faces drawn on wood, paper, cloth, silk, rubber and other different materials, that is, the face of the shell to cast a change. Such as the Sichuan opera "face" in the water floating, "live to capture the Sanlang" in the Yan Shijiao and other characters of the face is used in this way.

Beard, beard changes have the following two: change nothing into something, the actors change God rapid, even faster than the face change. One is to turn black into white. In the Sichuan opera Wen Zhao Guan, Wu Yuan defected to the state of Wu and fled to Zhao Guan, where his portrait was hung at the entrance in order to catch him. He went to the house of the hermit Donggao Gong to take refuge, and because of his inner sorrow, his hair turned white overnight. The guards captured Huang Fu Na by mistake, and Wu Shi was able to leave the pass.