Peking Opera

Peking Opera is a performance art that integrates singing, recital, acting, and martial arts, with the first two being song forms and the last two being dance forms. The dramatic artistic effects are achieved through routines of hand, eye, body, and foot movements.

With roots dating back to 1840-1860, Peking Opera assimilated various local folk music styles such as Hui, Han, Kunqu, and Shaanxi operas. The performers primarily sing and recite in the Beijing dialect. Today, Peking Opera is the most popular and influential form of stage performance in China and an important representation of traditional Chinese culture. It is wide- ly regarded as the national opera of China.

Peking Opera's repertoire primarily draws from Chinese history. It has standardized artistic expressions in text, perfor- mance, music, and set designs. Famous plays include Farewell My Concubine, the Ruse of the Empty City, and taking tiger Mountain by Strategy. The vocal music mainly consists of erhuang (adapted from folk tunes of Anhui and Hubei) and xipi (from Shaanxi tunes). Accompanying these are two types of instruments: wenchang (civilian plays) with huqin (a two- stringed fiddle) and flute, and wuchang (martial plays) with bangu (a Chinese frame drum) and big gong. The characters in Peking Opera are generally divided into four types of roles: the sheng (male roles), dan (female roles), jing ( male roles with painted face), and chou (clown or a negative character). The sheng includes positive male roles excluding the hualian (the mighty character with heavily painted face) and chou and is further divided into laosheng (a dignified older role), wusheng (a martial character for roles involving combat), and xiaosheng (young male character). The dan refers to any positive female role and includes qingyi/zhengdan (virtuous and elite women), huadan (vivacious and unmarried women), guimendan (young, good-looking woman from a wealthy family), daomadan/wu- dan (young female warriors), caidan (clownish and cunning females), and laodan (old women). The jing mainly refers to male characters with unique personalities or appearances. This category features colorful make-up and low, powerful voices, full of primal energy. A chou, depicted by a patch of white on the face, is a humorous character. Facial makeup is a distinc- tive feature of Peking opera, with red representing loyalty and bravery, black representing wisdom and fierceness, blue and green representing grass-roots heroes, yellow and white repre- senting cunning and wickedness, and gold and silver represent- ing gods and spirits.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Pe- king Opera has been widely promoted overseas and is highly regarded as a cultural envoy. Peking Opera performances by master artists like Mei Lanfang have helped remedy Western biases against Chinese culture, promoted cultural exchanges between China and the West, and had a profound impact on the development of theater and film arts in East Asia, Europe and the United States. The Peking Opera performance system named after Mei Lanfang is recognized as a representative of the oriental drama performing systems. In 2010, Peking Opera was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

京劇

中國國粹京劇是一種融合唱、念、做、打的表演藝術，融匯徽劇、漢調、昆曲、秦腔及其他地方民間曲調，并結合北京的語言特點而形成。京劇自1840年至1860年之間形成并流傳至今，是中國影響最大的戲曲劇種，也是中華民族傳統文化的重要表現形式，享有中國“國劇”的美譽。

京劇以歷史故事為主要演出內容，在劇本、表演、音樂、舞臺美術等各個方面都有一套規范化的藝術表現形式， 著名劇目有《霸王別姬》《空城計》《智取威虎山》等。京劇的主要聲腔為二黃、西皮，伴奏分胡琴、長笛主奏的文場和班鼓、大鑼主奏的武場兩大類。現今流行的京劇角色主要分為生、旦、凈、丑四種，其中，“生”是除了花臉和丑角以外的男性正面角色的統稱，分老生、武生、小生；“旦”是女性正面角色的統稱，分青衣（正旦）、花旦、閨門旦、刀馬旦、武旦、彩旦、老旦；“凈”大多是性格、品質或相貌上有些特異的男性人物，化妝用臉譜，音色洪亮，風格粗獷；“丑”扮演喜劇角色，故在鼻梁上抹一小塊白粉。臉譜是京劇的鮮明特色，紅臉代表忠勇，黑臉代表智猛，藍臉和綠臉代表草莽英雄，黃臉和白臉代表狡詐兇惡，金臉和銀臉代表神妖。京劇表演的藝術手法中，唱和念屬于“歌”，做和打屬于“舞”，它們通過既定的手、眼、身、腳動作編排實現戲劇藝術效果。

中華人民共和國成立后，京劇作為國家文化使者在海外廣泛傳播并深受贊譽，以京劇藝術大師梅蘭芳為代表的京劇海外演出改變了當時西方民眾對中國文化的偏見，增進了中西方文化交流，對東亞、歐美的戲劇和電影藝術發展產生深遠影響。梅蘭芳京劇表演體系被視為東方戲劇表演體系的代表。2010年，“京劇”列入聯合國教科文組織人類非物質文化遺產代表作名錄。