Introduction to Peking Opera,,

Peking Opera: 1) Stage and space-time

The stage of Peking Opera used to be without a big curtain, so the audience could see the whole stage at a glance. On the stage, there is usually only a table with a "table surround" and two chairs with a "chair cape", known as "a table and two chairs". Both the table surround and the chairs are covered with decorative embroidery. Sometimes there was nothing on the stage. Later, a big curtain was added in front of the stage, which was used to cover the stage before the performance. Sometimes in the performance process and pull a curtain, known as the "two curtains", with which to set up the tables and chairs, actors and other preparatory work in the back of the curtain, the curtain can be performed at the same time there are actors and actresses, so that the Peking Opera performances more compact.

The time and space on the stage of Peking Opera is very free, and it is not limited by the time and space of real life. After the curtain is drawn, the stage does not indicate any time or place until the actors are on stage. The time and space of a Peking Opera dance is defined by the activities of the actors. For example, when a character comes on stage in Peking Opera, he can indicate that the stage is his study by reciting and singing. But this study ceases to exist when he leaves the stage. Immediately afterward another character comes on, and through his stance acting, he can indicate that the stage is a rugged mountain road. When a man sits idly in his own house and wants to walk to his friend's house, he walks in a circle on the stage (called a "circle"), and his house is converted into his friend's house. Another example is when the playwright hears an unexpected news and is shocked. This is supposed to be a momentary psychological reaction, but in order to portray the character, it can take a long time to sing. On the contrary, like writing a letter, reading a letter, drinking process, it would have taken a certain amount of time, but in order to be concise, only perform a gesture, while playing a suona tune, and it is done.

Therefore, when the audience enjoys Peking Opera, they need to use their imagination along with the actors' recitation, singing and performance, so that they can understand the time, place and environment in the play.

(2) Types of roles

The types of roles in Peking Opera, commonly known as the "line", are mainly based on the gender, age, identity, status, personality, temperament and other divisions of the characters in the play. The division of roles in Peking Opera has evolved from the ancient styles of Kunqu Opera and Huihan Opera. At the beginning, there were ten roles, such as Sheng, Dan, Mei, Wai, Jing, Chou, Miscellaneous, Top Hand, Bottom Hand, and Pop. Later, due to the development of the performing arts and the richness of repertoire, the strict line was broken and synthesized into four major lines: Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou. Each line embraces several different types of roles.

Such as raw line: Lao Sheng (mainly play the emperor and the elegant and weak middle-aged and elderly. Some of the singing and playing both military generals, such as Hua Yun, Yue Fei, Huang Zhong, etc., belongs to the "rely on the old man", also belongs to the old man line), Wu Sheng (brave generals or heroes of the Green Forest), Xiao Sheng (the main role of the martial arts, suave and elegant characters, such as Zhou Yu, Lu Bu, as well as handsome teenage characters), Red Sheng (such as Guan Yu, a class of Zhao Kuangyin characters), children in the play a class of characters, the play is a role of the children. Children in the play a class of roles, then called dolls Sheng.

The Dan line has: Zheng Dan (or Qingyi) (dignified and quiet women), Hua Dan (innocent and lively girls or young women with a spicy character), Wu Dan (women generals, heroines and mythological demonesses, etc.), the old Dan (old women), Caidan (character of the bright and funny women or spiteful women, etc.).

Pure (also known as "flower face") line: the net (solemn and dignified loyal generals), deputy net (green forest heroes or powerful ministers, etc.), martial net (tough generals or mythological spirit fairy demon, etc.).

Clown (also known as "small flower face", "three flower face") in the line: the clown (clever and funny or sinister and cunning a class of roles), martial arts clown (shrewd and capable and funny and humorous heroes and righteous and other different lines, in the singing, reciting, doing, playing, clothing, In terms of singing, reading, acting, playing, costumes, make-up and so on, they all have their own characteristics. In the same line, there are several schools. According to their own conditions and understanding of the art, each school innovates and creates on the basis of tradition, forming distinctive styles and characteristics.

(3) singing accompaniment

The main singing voice of Beijing opera is "Xipi" and "Erhuang", referred to as "Pihuang". Xipi, Erhuang is a general term for the two cadences, they are divided into a number of "plate style". These patterns are based on the development of a tune. Xipi, Erhuang have "original board", "slow board", "fast three eyes", "scattered board", "rocking board" and other boards, Xipi also has "two six", "running water", "fast board".

Xipi class, Erhuang class of the same kind of various board style, there are links, but also different. The difference lies in the strength and weakness of the beat, the whole scattered, the rhythm of the sparse and dense, the speed of the speed, the melody of the complexity and simplicity. These patterns can either be independent sections or connected sets. Different patterns express different feelings. In the singing, singing comes first. Singing is an important means of characterization. Peking Opera, in addition to Xipi, Erhuang, there are also "Siping tone", "South bang bang", "high dial" and other cadences.

Peking Opera music is also programmed, a variety of cadences, plates can be reused (of course, not exactly copy). For example, Su San sings "xipi zhuban" in "Women's Liberation", and Liu Yingchun sings "xipi zhuban" in "Fenhewan". This is absolutely not allowed in opera. Therefore, to appreciate Peking Opera, you need to carefully distinguish the differences in singing styles.

In order to match the performance, describe the environment, rendering the atmosphere, often play some instrumental music, which is the "tune". These songs are long and short, with suona, flute blowing, with the huqin pull, each with its own purpose. For example, the marshal rose tent blowing "water dragon chanting", welcome guests blowing "work feet on", the spirit of the Hall of sacrifice to play "crying heaven" and so on.

The gongs and drums play an important role in Beijing opera, and they are indispensable for singing, reading and playing. It is characterized by strong sound, rhythm, used to strengthen the rhythm and create atmosphere. For example, if there is no accompaniment of gongs and drums in a battle scene, it is unimaginable. Peking Opera gongs and drums have many points called "gongs and drums". They have a certain way of playing, but they are flexible. "The gongs and drums are mainly divided into the opening gongs and the body gongs and drums. The opening gongs and drums are the gongs and drums that are played before the singing, and they are used as a guide to introduce the singing. The body gongs and drums are the gongs and drums that are used in the performance and martial arts.

Peking opera gongs and drums also have a special role, which is to unify the various means of expression. All the conversion of singing, reading and playing, and the adjustment of the rhythm of the stage, all rely on the gongs and drums to complete. Therefore, the gongs and drums are used throughout the play.

The recitation of Beijing opera is also very distinctive. It is different from the language of daily life, but after artistic processing, rich in musical stage language.

The recitation of Peking Opera is mainly divided into "Jingbai" and "Rhymebai". Jingbai is the initial processing of Beijing dialect, its rhythm of fast and slow, the tone of the ups and downs more exaggerated. The flower girl and the clown in Beijing Opera all recite Jingbai. Rhyming Bai is not Beijing dialect, but "Zhongzhou rhyme", which sounds very different from Beijing dialect. It is a further processed stage language, with more exaggerated rhythms and tones, more rhythmic and rhythmic beauty. In Peking Opera, the old man, the green man, the flower face, the young man, the old man, and so on, all recite rhyming white. The rhyming white is able to express the content of thought concisely and clearly, and has a unique expressive power.

Enjoying Peking Opera is different from enjoying opera, in that the audience and the actors can communicate directly. For example, an actor raised a hand, using the sleeve to block the other actor's line of sight, facing the audience to say his heart, and assuming that the other actor can not hear these words, called "playing the back bow". Watching Peking Opera is not as constrained as watching an opera, and the audience can react to the actor's comments at any time. For example, for the actor's skillful martial arts, beautiful drag, and the wonderful "flower over the door" played by the pianist, they can immediately give a warm applause, and can shout out loud. Actors are encouraged by the audience, acting more vigorously, so that the stage echo, the theater is full of warm atmosphere.

(4) costume face

Most of the traditional opera repertoire is based on historical stories, reflecting the life of various dynasties, and the performance of the characters of emperors, generals and ministers, talented and beautiful people, and the three religions and nine streams of various types of characters. Different dynasties and different status of the people, their costumes are different, play different roles which forced the opera artists to wear costumes on the development of a set of rules.

The style of the costume is an important symbol of the social status of the role. In terms of helmets, can be divided into crowns, hats, helmets, scarves four categories. Emperors wear crowns, civil officials wear gauze hats, military generals wear helmets, poor students wear square towels. The same is the crown and hat, the style of the wing and divided into up, straight, down three kinds. Upward called towards the sky wing, for the emperor and senior bureaucrats wear; general civil officials of the gauze hat for the straight wing; down the wing are non-officials wear. Also wear a hat, inserted gold flowers is the scholar, plus set of wings is extra horse harnessed by the side of a team. Theater clothes are divided into python (including official clothes), leaning, phi, pleats and so on. The general rule is that emperors and civil officials wear python robes, military generals wear by clothes, the civilian population wear pleated clothes.

The color of the play clothes is very delicate, one is the performance level, the emperor wore yellow, one to four officials wear scarlet, five officials wear green, green; two is the performance of customs, celebratory scenes to wear flashy colors, the penal field prisoners wear red, mourning clothes for white; three is the performance of the scenario, Lin Chong night run in black, highlighting a "night! "; four is to show the spirit of temperament, Guan Yu red face and green robe, showing that the ability to martial arts, but also wisdom and courage; five is to show the overall beauty of the stage, the marshal ascending tent, a group of generals wearing red, green, white, black leaning clothes.

Patterns in costume, not only is the beauty of decoration, but also has a symbolic meaning. Royal and ministerial costumes with more dragon pattern, it is a symbol of feudal authority and dignity; military generals of the open cloak with more tiger and leopard pattern, symbolizing bravery; Wen Sheng pleats depicting plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, and their character temperament; and scheming playsuit with pole figure, gossip to symbolize wisdom and Taoism.

The different ways of wearing theater costumes also reflect different scenarios. A waist skirt, tied to the outside of the clothes, walking with both hands flicking the skirt, showing a miserable situation; the scarf hanging behind the two straps, tied to the scarf edge, tied in a knot on the left side, you can also show the haste of the line; Marshal before going on a military expedition, Zha leaning, phi python, it gives a person the feeling of a military crisis.

The development of the art of face painting is inextricably linked to the development of Chinese opera. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the performances of the Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty operas, the clown face with a large white spot in the center of the face appeared.

In order to adapt to the open-air performance, the hook face generally only use black, red, white three contrasting colors, emphasizing the parts of the five senses, skin color and facial muscle corridors, such as thick eyebrows and big eyes, flipped nostrils, big mouth fork and so on. This primitive face painting was simple and crude, and was gradually decorated with the development of opera art. By the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, Peking Opera gradually formed a fairly complete artistic style and performance methods, Peking Opera face painting also absorbed the advantages of the face paintings of various local operas on the basis of several generations of famous actors and theater artists continue to explore and research, processing to improve and innovate, and was fully developed. Patterns and colors are more and more colorful, and the distinction between different characters is also more and more distinct, and created many historical and mythological characters' faces, forming a complete set of make-up spectrum.

The role of face painting is to show the character's personality, quality, identity, specialties, and appearance through the color and pattern of the face painting. The expression of such rich content is largely the use of two techniques: one is the combination of color changes, and the other is the composition of patterns.

In terms of color, the current Peking Opera face painting has red, purple, black, white, blue, green, yellow, old red, tile gray, gold, silver and other colors, which is an exaggerated portrayal of the character's natural skin color, developed into an allegorical use of color for character symbolism. Generally speaking, the red depicts the character of the red courage, righteousness and bravery; purple symbolizes the wisdom and courage just righteousness; black embodies the character is rich in loyalty and integrity of the noble character; water white implies that the character of the character of the nature of the treacherous, vicious means of the abominable face; oil white is the performance of the conceited domineering character; blue metaphorical strength and courage; green outlines the character of the chivalrous and righteousness; yellow indicates brutality; the old red more than the performance of the respected loyalty and courageous old generals; Gray symbolizes the old man; gold, silver two colors, mostly used for God, Buddha, ghosts and monsters, in order to show its gold face and body, symbolizing the sense of illusion.

The composition of the Beijing Opera face painting is diverse, coupled with colorful, highly decorative patterns, easy to make people confused, resulting in a sense of mystery. In fact, summed up there are only a dozen types, due to mutual reference, mutual changes, it has given rise to a lot of spectrum type. These patterns are based on the appearance of various characters, personality traits, even if the same type of spectrum, due to the character of different characters, each part of the line drawing and color treatment is also different, so that each character is rich in their own personalities, and never the same. The composition of the face has several kinds:

The whole face, basically a color as the main body of the face painted all over the face, and then use a color to outline the five senses.

The three tile face, with lines outlining the eyebrows, eye sockets and nose sockets, presenting three distinct main colors on the forehead and cheeks.

The Cross Door Face, which is mostly drawn from the bridge of the nose up a column of color and connected to the left and right eye sockets, forming a cross in the middle of the face.

Broken flower face, the forehead has a complete main color, the rest of the parts with secondary colors to add hook pattern, rich in color, composition in various forms, complex and fine lines.

Pictogram face, most of this face is a mythological elf gods and monsters, it is a forehead case hooked decorative birds, animals, fish, insects and other patterns, indicating that it is from what animals into human form.

Crooked face, generally showing the mischievous thugs or people who have suffered facial injuries, so the five features are crooked and deformed.

In the repertoire of Beijing opera, there are many myths and legends as the subject matter, the role of these plays are mostly gods and demons, their facial categories, belonging to the "fairy face" or "hieroglyphic face". The most famous character is the Monkey King. He is a monkey bursting out of a stone, and later became a Taoist monk with strong martial arts and great powers. He protects the Tang Monk to get scriptures in the West, and along the way, he subdues the demons and subdues the devils, and after all the trials and tribulations, he finally gets back the scriptures, cultivates himself, and ranks in the class of immortals. His face is a "hieroglyphic face", which shows the facial features of a monkey; however, he later became a god, so he has the features of a "fairy face", i.e., the eye sockets are painted in gold. The beads on his forehead indicate that he is a disciple of the Buddha.

In addition to the above examples, there are also "eunuch face", "hero face", "demon face" and so on.

About the Beijing opera face, there are some special cases may wish to mention. Dan generally do not hook face, but not quite, Zhong Li Chun is an example. This woman is said to be the warring states Qi salt (now Shandong Dongping) people, so also known as Zhong Wuyan, she can fight, quite manly, and was born ugly, so in the play used to sketch the face of the treatment method. After all, Wushan is a woman, so there is a lotus flower on her forehead to show her female identity.