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Nowadays, when people talking about the country, they prefer to choose the special points to describe, music is one of the topic that can differ different countries. As we know, China is a historical country that experience thousands years. With the development of their country, the music style changed a lot; however, it still keeps the traditional musical instruments. Chinese opera is one of the musical forms in China, it is a special representative music. There are various style of Chinese opera, for example, Huangmei opera, Peking Opera and Kunqu.
Here I have listed three different Opera. Peony Pavilion belongs to Kunqu, Hongyang Cave, The story of the white snake and the Cocubine Mei are Peking Opera,

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Kunqu opera is concentrated on singing. The music instruments are used in kunqu are qu flute, drum, board and others. According from the research, kunqu is also known as "water-grinding cavity". From the performance, we can clearly linked the meaning of the story with the singing and lyrics. At the same time, it is known as "The Mother of all Operas"

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What is Kunqu Opera?

Kunqu Opera originated from Kunshan in Suzhou city is an old drama style listed as a " Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by the UNESCO in 2001. Beginning from the late Yuan Dynasty (middle period of 14th century), Kunqu is over 600 years old and is reputed as the " ancestor of Chinese dramas" and the " mother of Chinese operas ". Kunqu Opera as a Suzhou-birthed drama art is typically of rich Suzhou cultural features, but as its wide spread through the main part of China, it combines the characteristics of other famous Chinese operas. To provide the best stage effect and artistic beauty, Kunqu Opera is especially excellent with the fine makeup, soft and graceful singing, elegant actions, and traditional music, etc., which is really a hearty visual and audio feast.

Features of Kunqu Opera

Costumes

Costumes of Kunqu Opera are particularly abundant with rich colors and styles. Apart from the costumes styled from Yuan and Ming dynasties, others similar to the very popular garments and dressings of people of that period can also be seen often on the stage, like the martial attires, clothes of officials of different levels and positions, etc.

Characters

There are basically five characters in Kunqu Opera, Dan, Sheng, Jing, Mo, and Chou. Each one has their only personal characteristics and is indispensable in this artistic performance.

Dan (旦): All the women characters are called Dan in Kunqu. Among them, Zheng Dan (正旦) is usually the most important woman playing a loving wife or chaste woman, Wu Dan (五旦) plays an unmarried miss or kind chivalrous lady, and Lao Dan (老旦) usually is an elder female actress who plays a mother or sometimes a male role, etc.

Sheng(生) : Sheng is the general call of all the men who are from about 20 to 50 years old, and is mainly divided into Jin Sheng (巾生) and Guan Sheng (官生). Jin Sheng usually is the leading actor of love story who is a young scholar holds a folding fan into his hand. And Guan Sheng is an official with a gauze cap on the head.

Jing (净) : Jing is commonly known as the "Painted Face (大花脸)" with the colorful makeup on his whole face. All Da Mian (大面) are positive characters, and the faces are various from purple, blue, to colorful with red and blue being the main colors. Bai Mian (白面) is often a treacherous official.

Mo (末) : Mo usually acts elder men over middle ages with long beard. Wai (外) is the eldest with white or grey beard, and Lao Sheng (老生) and Fu Mo (副末) have black or colorful ones.

Chou (丑) : Chou has the most respectable status in Kunqu Opera. Fu Chou (付丑) acts a role that has high social status but often does evil things secretly, such as a treacherous official. Xiao Chao (小丑) on the contrary is very comical and expresses the inner world directly on his facial expression and body languages.

Accompaniment

Since Kunqu Opera comes from southern China and has been influenced by the dramas and operas in northern China, it now has a mixing musical accompaniment of these both areas. Kunqu Opera takes in a lot of different crooked cards shaped from the ancient dancing songs, poetries of Tang and Song dynasties, folk songs of ethnic groups, so the music is much of traditional Chinese styles. Furthermore, Sheng, Xiao, Suona horn, Sanxian, and Pipa, etc. together make distinct but songful accompaniment for every Kunqu operas.

Classic Kunqu Operas

Because Kunqu Opera is regarded as the treasure of Chinese traditional culture and art, it has a series of very excellent plays from the ancient.

The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭) is the best drama work of Tang Xianzu (汤显祖) who is famous and respectable literalist in China as Shakespeare in the UK. This classic art has been performed around the world for countless times and always praised by people. Just in October, 2016, the Peony Pavilion (Young Edition) of the famous Mr. Pai Hsien Yung (白先勇) from Taiwan appeared on the stage in London and raised a heat among the audiences.

In this opera, Liu Mengmei (柳梦梅) is a poor scholar who dreamt a lady having predestined marriage with him. Du Liniang (杜丽娘) is the daughter of prefecture chief in ancient China and she once dreamt of a scholar courted her and dated together in the Peony Pavilion. After awakening, Liniang died from terrible depression and later his father asked to build temple for her. Three years later, Mengmei accommodated in the temple on his way to attend the imperial test and met the sole of Liniang, finding she was the girl in his dream. Liniang became alive again after Mengmei unburied her. Then, after he was proclaimed the First Scholar and several difficulties, the couple finally lived together.

Besides, the "Palace of Eternal Life (长生殿)" telling about the love story between Xuanzong Emperor (唐玄宗) and his imperial concubine Yang Yuhuan (杨玉环) in Tang dynasty, the "Peach Blossoms Fan (桃花扇)" reflecting the complicated social relationships based on the love of Li Xiangjun (李香君) and Hou Chaozong (侯朝宗), the "Fifteen Strings of Cash (十五贯)" appreciated by Premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来), etc. are all very great works of high value.

Kunqu Opera - Mother of Chinese Operas

World Oral and Intangible Heritage

"Dan" Character in Kunqu Opera

"Guan Sheng" in the Kunqu Opera

Colorful Painted Face of a "Jing" Character

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Kunqu Opera, Suzhou Kunqu - Oldest Chinese Opera

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Kunqu Opera originated from Kunshan in Suzhou city is an old drama style listed as a " Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by the UNESCO in 2001. Beginning from the late Yuan Dynasty (middle period of 14th century), Kunqu is over 600 years old and is reputed as the " ancestor of Chinese dramas" and the " mother of Chinese operas ".

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Peony Pavilion, A Surprising Dream - Wu Judy Chin-tai 

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Peony Pavilion, A Surprising Dream - Wu Judy Chin-tai 

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The most famous and frequently performed Zhezi in "The Peony Pavilion". The opera is like a flower cluster, full of beautiful songs and dances, and is a very representative repertoire of Kunqu opera. As Du Liniang and Chunxiang play in the garden, Liniang sleeps sleepily in the garden. She meets a scholar in her dream. After they fall in love with each other, Liniang wakes up feeling lost.

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Peony Pavilion: Retracing the Dream - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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Peony Pavilion: Retracing the Dream - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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It is very often performed recently, but the notes of the opera that were almost lost in the past. The acting Du Liniang revisits the garden again, reminiscing about the dream of falling in love with a scholar in the garden a few days ago, but the dream is difficult to regain, only to return in melancholy.

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Chinese Kunqu Opera: Peony Pavilion-Interrupted Dream-1

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Peony Pavilion: Drawing a Self-Portrait - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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Peony Pavilion: Drawing a Self-Portrait - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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The actor Du Liniang fell ill and was thin because of missing the person in her dream, so she painted a self-portrait, leaving the world, and inscribed a poem in the painting. The voice and the singing and everything just add up to make the scene vivid to all the listeners.

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Peony Pavilion: The Nether Judge - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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Peony Pavilion: The Nether Judge - Wu Judy Chin-tai

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Liniang told the judge about the death of Mengmei in the city of Wounded Death. The judge took out the marriage book and checked it. Knowing that Liniang and Mengmei would be married in the future, she released Liniang out of the city of Wounded Death. The music creates a kind of uncertainty in the heart of the listeners, which differs it from all other scenes.

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Peking opera is the most popular opera in China. The features it has are different from others. First of all, it relates with local culture which can represent the culture of the places. Secondly, it has two accompanied style, one is huqin another is drum. More Specifically, the martial arts field is mainly composed of hu qin and the martial action field is mainly composed of drums.

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Reviewed by Siyuan Liu
MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September 2012)

As a performance-based theater, jingju (Beijing/Peking opera) has undergone tremendous changes over the past century in reaction to social and cultural transformations, including the modernist attacks in the Republican era, PRC dramatic reform campaign in the 1950s, formal and thematic strictures of the model plays both leading up to and during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), challenges by the market economy in the post-Mao era, and political whims under martial law (1949-1987) and after in Taiwan. In The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World, Li Ruru argues that through these tumultuous times, it is the genre's performers and "[t]heir response to the diverse and continuously changing demands of theatre and society [that] make jingju what it is and maintain it in a state of constant mutation" (275). The book focuses on six artists who represent jingju's four role types ( hangdang)- sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted face), and chou (clown); whose works span the early twentieth century to the present; and who were or still are active in three major centers of jingju: Beijing, Shanghai, and Taiwan. Thee artists under discussion are Cheng Yanqiu (1904-1958, male actor of dan roles, Republican era, Beijing), Li Yuru (1924-2008, dan actress, pre-Cultural Revolution PRC, Shanghai), Ma Yongan (1942-2007, jing actor, Cultural Revolution model plays, Beijing), Yan Qinggu (1970-, chou actor, post-Mao, Shanghai), Kuo Hsiao-chuang (1951-, dan actress, 1970s to early 1990s, Taiwan), and Wu Hsing-kuo (1953-, sheng actor, 1980s to present, Taiwan).

This is an ambitious book in its attempt to investigate critical changes in the past century of jingju history from the viewpoint of its star performers. Li is uniquely qualified to take on such a task, as the daughter of Li Yuru, one of the leading jingju actresses, a student of Cheng Yanqiu in his Beijing Theater School (1930-1941), and a top star of Shanghai Jingju Theatre where Yang Qinggu is the principal chou actor. Li Ruru is also one of the few scholars originally from China to have conducted in-depth research on jingju in Taiwan. More pertinent to this project, Li has recently completed three projects in Chinese concerning her mother's life and art: a biography, an edited volume of her representative plays, and a collection of her writings that include some highly insightful reflections on the historical circumstances and performance details of her productions.

At the core of Li's project is an attempt to understand jingju's evolution from the actor's perspective, both externally, how they adapted their art to meet the challenges of their times, and internally, how they reconciled their adaptation with their training, specifically in relation to the teachings of their masters, the specificities of their role types and performance styles ( liupai), and their borrowing from other theatrical forms. Before the case studies, Li devotes two chapters to delineating the external transformation (Chapter 1: " Jingju: Formation, Growth and the First Reform") and the performance and training basics that define a jingju actor (Chapter 2: "Training of a Total Performer: Four Skills and Five Canons"). This analytical pattern continues in each of six case study chapters, starting with the social, political, and artistic environment in which the actors find themselves, followed by discussions of how their training prepares them for these changes, and ending with their artistic and creative navigations between these internal and external demands.

The final part of each case study is usually full of insightful revelations. In the case of Cheng Yanqiu in chapter 3, for example, Li Ruru starts with useful contextual information that includes debates on the male dan system, the Qing dynasty xianggong system in which male apprentices acted as courtesans, Cheng's masculine personality in contradiction to his feminine roles, and his complicated relationship with his master and rival Mei Lanfang. The chapter then dives into the specifics of Cheng's balance of yin and yang through a detailed analysis of one of Cheng's arias and his complicated dance and "water sleeve" movements in the play Tears in the Barren Mountain (Huangshan lei). Here, Li Ruru draws attention to how Cheng's masculinity is revealed through contrasting high and low notes that are slightly out of the normal range for dan singing; this singing technique allows the male actor to powerful embody the role of a heroine who suffers acutely under and oppressive taxation system.

Chapter 3 focuses on Li Yuru's frustrations, in the first two decades of the PRC, with her genuine yet increasingly futile attempts to reconcile her artistic creativity with the ideological demands of the time. Li Yuru was criticized in the l960s for applying jingju stepping patterns to the role of a communist cadre and for asking for a Chinese-style jacket to use as a prop for another character, because both devices were deemed inappropriate for communist heroines. Chapter 5 moves to the Cultural Revolution years, in which we find the Beijing jing actor Ma Yongan, who grew up and trained after 1949 and played the peasant bandit leader Lei Gang in the revolutionary model play Azalea Mountain (Dujuan shan, 1973), embraced the play's realistic staging and many Western-oriented innovations-including the elimination of role types in favor of characters, the disruption of stylized acting conventions, and the removal of heightened speech patterns-while still managing to integrate jingju conventions or even unconsciously incorporating them into a more naturalistic acting style. For example, Ma Yongan secretly adopted the movement pattern from a traditional play Li Qi in the Pavilion (Li Qi changting) for the entrance of his character in shackles during the strictly prescriptive and committee-based process of creating the revolutionary model play Azalea Mountain. Moving to the post-Mao decades, when jingju has to compete with new forms of contemporary entertainment, chapter 6 features the contemporary Shanghai chou actor Yan Qinggu. Li Ruru highlights Yan's efforts to both acquire and showcase the buried treasures of aging chou masters and to find new inspiration from world theater. In a rare move for a jingju actor, Yan studied the Japanese comic form kyogen for a year in Japan and later incorporated its movement patterns into a short jingju adaptation of Anton Chekhov's story "The Death of a Civil Servant."

The final two chapters move to Taiwan, where jingju evolved on a separate path after 1949. Chapter 7 focuses on Kuo Hsiao-chuang, an actress who greatly modernized jingju performance and brought it to a young generation between the late 1970s and early 1990s, when she abruptly left the stage just as theatrical exchange with the mainland had recommenced. The final chapter brings us the current international sensation Wu Hsing-kuo, who broke both with his master and with the theatrical conventions of jingju performance in staging intercultural productions that mesh jingju with classical Western plays, including works of Shakespeare and Beckett. Li highlights the poignant moment when Wu severed ties with his master, who disapproved of Wu's forays into contemporary dance. This severing eventually paved the way for Wu's intercultural productions, but it also left deep psychological scars that Wu would tap into in his one-person adaptation of King Lear, known as Li Er is Here (2001).

These and other revealing examples powerfully underscore Li's argument of the performers' role in sustaining jingju's vitality over the past century. To me, these are the most informative and persuasive sections of the book, which is why I sometimes find myself wishing for more space devoted to these powerful arguments and revelations and less to the background and context at the beginning of each of the case study chapters. For example, the first half of chapter 4 on Li Yuru is devoted to drama reform in the 1950s, with a couple more pages on the emergence of jingju actresses and Li Yuru's training; only then does the chapter turn to Li's two plays in the 1950s and 1960s. One of them, the traditional play The Drunken Imperial Concubine (Guifei zuijiu), represented Li's maturity as an artist by successfully combining different performance styles, whereas the other, a newly-created historical play titled Tang Sai'er, failed miserably as a result of following Mao Zedong's directive to eulogize a Ming dynasty heroine in a peasant rebellion. The side-by-side discussion of these two productions vividly exemplifies the promise and frustrations of Li Yuru's generation of actors and actresses who, having studied and performed in the pre-1949 system, were largely deprived of their creativity at the critical moment when their own styles were ready to emerge. However, the discussion of these two plays constitutes less than half of the chapter. This is somewhat frustrating since Li Ruru obviously has access to materials that could have been utilized to build a stronger case. That said, given the complicated histories behind these stories and Li's stated mission to examine the actors' interaction with their times, I can well understand the emphasis on context before diving into the historical and performance specifics. In fact, coming from China as I do, I find the context sections in the two Taiwan chapters extremely helpful in understanding the performance choices Kuo and Wu made in reaction to the changing political and cultural circumstances under martial law and after. To me, this suggests that Li Ruru has struck the right balance between argument and context.

Ultimately, The Soul of Beijing Opera offers an important contribution to our understanding of the role of jingju performers in the genre's evolution over the past century. Its combination of sweeping scope and in-depth, at times very technical, analysis makes the book a must read in the study of Chinese theater.

Siyuan Liu
University of British Columbia

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The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in a Changing World

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Reviewed by Siyuan Liu MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September 2012) As a performance-based theater, jingju (Beijing/Peking opera) has undergone tremendous changes over the past century in reaction to social and cultural transformations, including the modernist attacks in the Republican era, PRC dramatic reform campaign in the 1950s, formal and thematic strictures of the model plays both leading up to and during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), challenges by the market economy in the post-Mao era, and political whims under martial law (1949-1987) and after in Taiwan.

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Hongyang Cave: Showing the Direction - Tan Fuying

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Hongyang Cave: Showing the Direction - Tan Fuying

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It explains the character's gloomy mood of working all his life for the Song Dynasty, but not being free. The inner entanglement is visible. The word "wei" rises low, and the word "home" in the mouth is in a roundabout way and falls to a high place, the sentence "half-day free time" is compact and then dragged. On the basis of using the resonance of the back of the brain, there is a degree of relaxation, the cavity does not follow the residual method, and the sound is directly thrown without the soft whistle. The tune is handled as the ups and downs within a certain range and the slogan must be accurate. It provides a certain foreshadowing for the character's final death not only due to grief, illness, but also due to overwork.

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Hongyang Cave: Showing the Direction (Hong Yang Dong: Zhi Lu)

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Hongyang Cave: The Messenger - Tan Fuying

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Hongyang Cave: The Messenger - Tan Fuying

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The singing and reading skills are well balanced, there are little ups and downs in the singing voice, and the performance is not very complicated on the surface, and the plot is not a twists and turns. Therefore, although the play is not big and complicated, it is hard to achieve great balance.

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Hongyang Cave: The Messenger (Hong Yang Dong: Bao Xin)

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Hongyang Cave: Hearing the News - Tan Fuying

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Hongyang Cave: Hearing the News - Tan Fuying

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After re-appreciating the unique details and connotations, the performance can not only fit the plot and the rationale, but also highlight the characteristics of the genre.

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The Story of the White Snake: Aria B - Song Xiaochuan, Diao Li

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The Story of the White Snake: Aria B - Song Xiaochuan, Diao Li

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Listen carefully to Bai Dan’s voice. Although the sound quality is rougher and sharper than that of ordinary women, it has a thin and high-pitched charm, but it also brings out a conflicting traditional beauty under the accompaniment of stringed instruments. The confusion and the sense of violation suddenly disappeared. Because he is a fundamental layman, he can’t hear clearly the lines chanted at first, and because the chanting stretches and stretches with the music, he often thinks that a sentence is over or interrupted strangely.

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The Story of the White Snake: Aria A - Song Xiaochuan, Diao Li

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The Story of the White Snake: Aria A - Song Xiaochuan, Diao Li

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It begins high-pitched, the solitary and resounding line "Leave Emei and go to the south of the Yangtze River." Nianbai played an antique, extremely Chinese tune. As the opening scene of the play, the delicate string sound is just perfect. The rhythmic sandal board sound was just right to set off the chanting without burying the lyrics.

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Cocubine Mei: Aria A - Li Hongtu, Li Haiyan

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Cocubine Mei: Aria A - Li Hongtu, Li Haiyan

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Following a little head-off behind the singing, there was a deep breath. This breath is not only the need of singing, but also very suitable for the catharsis of the characters. Because the atmosphere in the tent just now was too depressing. As soon as the account was released, the cold and fresh air outside made Yu Ji take a deep breath and let out the depression in her chest along with the singing voice in the high-pitched vocal area of ​​the lyrics "Sorrow and Emotion", truly blending the scenes. In this passage of "Nan Bangzi", not only must Yu Ji's sorrow be expressed, but also the desolate and desolate mood of the ancient battlefield.

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京剧《霸王别姬》 梅兰芳京剧团 [Farewell My Concubine] Mei Langfang Opera Troupe 2017 Vancouver