A Long Tradition of Chinese Opera - Case Study Example

History of Chinese Arts: A Long tradition of Chinese Opera Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) China is marked by its tradition of variety of art forms since ages and is divided into different periods under their subsequent ruling dynasties and changing technologies. China has born in its soil one of the oldest civilizations in the world covering history of more than 5,000 years and so with the culture there also grew subsequently the love for art and different art forms. Like paintings, paper work, sculptures, calligraphy etc. but not to forget the art in the form of folk and Opera which was the important part of the culture and civilization of China. German thinker Hegel who also thought art as a soul of the people considered “China as a homogenous totality whose essence could be known and described only by those who were not themselves Chinese, to produce a particular way of writing Chinese art.” (Clunas 1997: 9) Chinese Opera or xiqu encompasses several hundred forms of theatrical entertainment in their regional forms and the earliest of all got their originated from the music drama of the Sung (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties. (Grout & Williams 2003: 787) Sung Dynasty patronized the Zaju and Nanxi opera style and performances of the same were exhibited in tearooms, theatres, and showplaces. All the people especially writers and artists were so attracted towards it that they gave birth to Ci, a new form of literature resembling Opera. Another form of literature qu too got popularity during the Yuan Dynasty. The whole concept of qu literature was based on music. It was the stage that gave birth to many forms of instruments like pipa, the flute, and the zither. (TravelChina Guide.Com, Online) These all art forms varied according to their regional practices, culture and style and on the basis of their dialect, instrumentation, literary sources and folk songs. They were two main categories of Opera according to their style, and they were wen (civilian) and wu (military). The wen themes were all love stories while wu were heroic and military tales with an enduring display of jesting and acrobats. As said by Jay Grout and Weigel Williams, “Operas associated with the regions of Sichuan, Fukien, Shanghai, Canton and Beijing established themselves as a symbol of China’s culture and instrumental in establishing within China national tradition, the impact of which was felt by Western nations in early nineteenth century.” (Grout & Williams 2003: 787). Regional operas created their dominant position by reducing the popularity of luenqu, a music drama among the educated elite of Ming and Qing dynasties. (Grout & Williams 2003: 787). These forms of regional operas developed from the amateur form of rural entertainment generally performed by amateurs or those professionals whose rank was lower in the society. (Grout & Williams 2003: 787) With the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mongol invaders promoted what was known as Northern form of Opera called zaju, in other words ‘multi-act’ play and were in a four acts form. During the tenure of these plays, the main character sang lyric verse along all through the play while other characters performed actions with spoken dialogues. Main three characters played their role in zaju: a woman also known as dan, an older and generally a reputed man also known as mo and similarly a young man known as sheng. Primarily comics also called as chou too played the most important role making opera interesting by providing hilarious and irony commentary. Zaju was most popular among the Northern high-class society while in Southern parts particularly in the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, traditional folk of opera known as marvelous tales chuanqi were quite popular and for the Chinese, it was finest display of art. (Wilson, online) Out of the various art forms, Beijing Opera was considered as most popular, the tradition of which dates back to twelfth century when the performance of Opera was conducted in the very large public theaters of Hangzhou, one of the capitals of the Southern Song dynasty (1179-1276) and the southern play characterized by the unique form of dialogue and written in rhythmic form created its own unique place. There were some plays, composed by anonymous writing societies had no internal parts- acts or scenes except for string or wind orchestra. These were offstage chorus taking the place along the main arias, with the audience. (Wilson, online) Qing dynasty court patronized Beijing form of Opera and made it an emblem of Chinese culture. It had very fine music, touching compositions and beautiful costumes and presented the Chinese culture in all its vicissitude with the display of Chinese stories, beautiful paintings, delicate costumes, enduring gestures and acrobatic fighting. Every area and province of China had one or other Beijing Opera troupe. This form of Opera was so popular that Beijing even began to declare Beijing Opera Month. (Mackerras, 1976: 473) The main opera band constitutes orchestra band and percussion band. Peaceful scenes accompany the orchestra band while the percussion band follows war scenery and fighting. The most common percussion instruments used are castanets, drums, bells and cymbals. There would be one person to play the castanets and the drum, and lead the entire team of band. The orchestral instruments are the Jinghu, the Erhu, the Huqin, the Yueqin, the Sheng (reed pipe), the Suona, the Pipa (lute), and others and the band place itself on the left side of the stage. (Chinavoc, Online) Songs of Opera constitute number of melodies based on Xipi and touches the emotions of audience with sorrowful appeal. Dialogue is produced in two forms: Yuebai, generally sounded like the Hubei and Anhui dialects, and Jingbai, sounded like the Beijing dialect. The Yuebai form of dialogue is spoken by characters playing serious roles while the minor players or the characters playing frivolous roles use the latter. (Chinavoc, Online) In old times, the theater or musical composition was being performed by the lowest genre of the society and was the male’s prodigy. Females were not allowed with males to perform and males performed the female’s roles also. The best among the Beijing Opera master was Met Lan Fang (1894 – 1961). He was a superb singer, actor and dancer and a leading figure in the theater of China. (China Highlights, Online) Born on 22nd October 1894 in Tai Zhao of China's Jiangsu province, his interest for the Opera was hereditary as his grandfather and father were all famous opera players. Mei began his training of the art at the age of eight and gave his first performance at the age of 12. His best performance was in ‘Shattering Flowers’ creating for him a special place in the world of theater. (China Highlights, Online) Tan Xin Pei’s name is famous for founding of Tan style. He was considered as a role model for the Lao Sheng players and most reputed. It is commonly known that all the other Lao Sheng players were following his styles. His imitation of arias was on the lips of every body on the streets. For people he became like warlord. His most famous plays were “A Fisher's Rebelling” etc. His generation next was all imitating his style, even his son, TAN Xiao-Pei, grandson, TAN Fu-Ying, great grandson, TAN Yuan-Shou, and even great great grandson. But among all of them the most successful was Tan Fu-Ying. (China Highlights, Online) Another name to remember was the name of Ma Lin Liang (1901 - 1966). He founded the MA style and was graduated from the famous Beijing Opera training school Xi Lian Cheng. He got his apprenticeship from the JIA Hong-Ling, and then he became the follower of YU Shu-Yan. In the later years of his life, he formulated his own style and chief characteristic part of his style was the sweetness and fluency. Above all the dialogues and plot flowed in a very natural way. His plays included ‘Orphan of Zhao Family’, ‘Borrowing Eastern Wind’, ‘Gan-Lu Temple’, ‘Meeting of the Heroes’ etc. (China Highlights, Online) Jun-Qiu, a female role Qing Yi performer has his style known as ZHANG Style. His plays included ‘River-Facing Paguda’, ‘Meeting by poem’ etc. He was considered as number one in his roles as female characters. He was greatest of all Jing players and adopted QIU style with great skill and dexterity. He learned the art from the various players and initiated various reforms into the areas of Jing and acting. He created an aura of various theatrical dispositions and allowed various players to follow his style. Among his students were FANG Rong-Xiang and his most popular plays were ‘Execution of CHEN Shi-Mei’, ‘Town of Chi-Sang’ and ‘Stealing the Royal Horse’ etc. Over all the performance of the players lay in the skill they all beautiful displayed in their movements and adopted and modified the style to the tastes of the audience and plot construction. (China Highlights, Online) With the diversity of religions, social lives, ethnic composition of the ruling elite, the various geographic locations show the Chinese art in its diversity yet in every art form we can see uniformity which is an essence of the glorious period confounded in Chinese culture and tradition. Reference List Chinavoc. Beijing Opera – Origin. [Internet]. Available: http://www.chinavoc.com/arts/perform/opera/when_b.htm [September 28, 2008] China Highlights. Famouse Players in the History of Beijing Opera. [Online] Available: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/beijing-opera/players.htm [September 28, 2008] Clunas, C. 1997. Art in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press Grout, D.J. & Williams, H.W. 2003. A Short History of Opera. New York: Columbia University Press. Mackerras, C. P. 1976. Theatre and the Taipings. Modern China 2 (4): 473-501. Wang, Xu-M. 1996. Roles in Beijing Opera. [Internet]. Available: http://www.chinapage.com/xwang/roles.html [September 28, 2008] Wang, Xu-M. 1997. Beijing Opera. [Internet]. Available: http://www.chinapage.com/xwang/index0.html [September 28, 2008] Wilson, T.A. Chinese Opera: A Brief History. Internet. [Online] Available: http://academics.hamilton.edu/asian_studies/home/OpProg2.html September 28, 2008. Read More