Peking opera: roles, painted faces and Mei Lanfang

Peking opera was born of a birthday. In 1790, for the Qianlong Emperor's (乾隆) 80th birthday, troupes from the south came to the capital. The first was the Sanqing troupe (三庆), which sang mainly to the erhuang tunes; the Sixi (四喜), Hechun (和春) and Chuntai (春台) troupes followed. They are known as the "Four Great Anhui Troupes" (四大徽班), and the episode went down in history as "the Anhui troupes enter Beijing" (徽班进京). At first their theatre was performed for the court; only later was it opened to the public.

Around 1828, actors from Hubei arrived in turn and performed together with the Anhui troupes. Their two families of tunes, xipi (西皮) and erhuang (二黄), merged into a new style, first called pihuang (皮黄); it also absorbed other traditions, including kunqu and qinqiang. Shaped by the Beijing pronunciation, it took on the accent of the capital. It is generally regarded as fully formed by 1845.

Its name changed with the city's: 京剧 (jīngjù, "theatre of the capital") or 京戏; 平剧 from 1928 to 1949, when Beijing was called Beiping; 京剧 again in mainland China after 1949, while in Taiwan it is called "national theatre" (国剧). From 1884 the Empress Dowager Cixi became a regular patron, securing its place above older forms. In China it is often described as a "national essence" (国粹).

京剧 is part of the HSK 3 vocabulary.

Before Peking opera, the theatre of the court was kunqu (昆曲). It grew out of a singing style from Kunshan (昆山), near Suzhou, born at the end of the Yuan or the start of the Ming; according to Chinese Wikipedia, it only truly became kunqu after Wei Liangfu (魏良辅) refined it in the 16th century. From the 16th to the 18th century kunqu dominated the Chinese stage; it is nicknamed the "ancestor of a hundred operas".

Its most famous play is The Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭), by Tang Xianzu (汤显祖), under the Ming. UNESCO describes it this way: a dynamic structure and melody, rhythmic patterns of great virtuosity, a complex system of choreography, acrobatics and symbolic gestures, roles for a young male lead, a female lead, an old man and comic characters, accompanied by a bamboo flute, a small drum, wooden clappers, gongs and cymbals.

Peking opera borrowed a great deal from it: according to Wikipedia, many of its staging conventions and aesthetic principles, and many of its early plays were adaptations of kunqu or other older forms. But it simplified the singing and added real acrobatics.

Kunqu has declined since the 18th century, because it demands a lot of knowledge from its audience. According to UNESCO, of the 400 arias still regularly sung in the mid-20th century, only a few dozen are still performed. UNESCO proclaimed it a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity as early as 2001, and inscribed it on the Representative List in 2008.

On a Peking opera stage, each actor specializes in one role type (行当), which has its own singing style, costumes and make-up. There are four main ones: 生, 旦, 净 and 丑. Chinese Wikipedia counts a fifth, 末, which played older supporting male characters and merged into the 生 roles.

For a long time all these roles were played by men. Qing emperors repeatedly banned actresses, starting in 1671; in 1772 Qianlong banned them from Beijing altogether. Women began appearing on stage unofficially in the 1870s, and the ban was lifted in 1912. Men playing female roles have remained popular all the same: Mei Lanfang, of whom more below, was one of them.

The clown, 丑 (chǒu), has a name that sounds like the word for "ugly", which in simplified characters is also written 丑. According to a traditional belief reported by Wikipedia, ugliness combined with laughter drove away evil spirits. He is recognisable by the patch of white around his nose; he often speaks the everyday Beijing dialect, and he is allowed to improvise.

The painted make-up of Chinese opera is called 脸谱 (liǎnpǔ), from 脸, "face"; Chinese Wikipedia explains the name by the fact that its patterns follow set models. It is the mark above all of the 净 roles, which are also called 花脸, "painted faces". Its colours and lines tell you the character's nature. According to Chinese Wikipedia, scholars see two origins: the masks of ritual dances that drove away demons, and the legend of the Prince of Lanling, of the Northern Qi, whose face was so handsome that he wore a fearsome mask in battle to overawe the enemy.

For the three best-known colours, the English and Chinese Wikipedias agree:

• red: loyalty, uprightness and courage, as for Guan Yu (关羽), revered as the god of war;

• black: integrity and uprightness, but also rashness, as for Bao Zheng (包拯) or Zhang Fei (张飞);

• white: cunning and treachery, as for Cao Cao (曹操), whose face is painted all white.

Chinese Wikipedia adds: yellow for cruelty, blue for hot-tempered characters, green for demons and spirits, purple for calm righteousness, and gold and silver for gods, buddhas and supernatural beings, such as the Buddha or Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

Beware of misreading: as French Wikipedia points out, in the West red can suggest danger or the devil, whereas here it marks a loyal, upright character.

Peking opera combines four skills: singing, speech, dance-acting and combat, acrobatics included. According to UNESCO, the music sets the pace of the show, creates the atmosphere and guides the story. "Civilian plays" feature strings and winds, such as the jinghu and the dizi flute; "military plays" feature percussion.

The jinghu (京胡) is the star instrument: a small, high-pitched two-string fiddle that accompanies the singer. According to Chinese Wikipedia, it took shape around 1785, at the end of the Qianlong reign, from the fiddle of Anhui opera; it is made of bamboo, with a snakeskin-covered sound box. The ensemble itself is led by the player of the drum and clappers.

On stage there is hardly any scenery. There is almost always a table and at least one chair, which by convention can become a city wall, a mountain or a bed. A whip stands for a horse, an oar for a boat; walking in a large circle means travelling a long way. Costumes, on the other hand, are lavish and show rank: yellow for the emperor and his family, purple for high officials. Their long "water sleeves" are used to express emotion.

The repertoire includes nearly 1,400 plays, taken mostly from historical novels or traditional stories of civil, political and military struggles.

Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳, 22 October 1894 – 8 August 1961) was born in Beijing into a family of Peking opera and kunqu performers. He first appeared on stage in 1904 at the Guanghe Theatre and built his career in female 旦 roles, especially graceful, refined women (青衣). With Cheng Yanqiu, Shang Xiaoyun and Xun Huisheng he was one of the "Four Great Dan" (四大名旦). Among his famous roles: Consort Yu in Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬), which is also the title of Chen Kaige's film, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993.

He was the first to take Peking opera abroad: to Japan in 1919, to North America in 1930, where Hollywood welcomed him, then to Moscow and Berlin in 1935, where he made a deep impression on Bertolt Brecht. During the Japanese occupation he refused to sing for the occupiers; according to Chinese Wikipedia, he even grew a moustache to mark his break with the Japanese side.

On 16 November 2010, at the committee's 5th session in Nairobi, UNESCO inscribed Peking opera on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It describes it as an art combining singing, speech, acting and martial arts, practised all over China but centred on Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, and sung mainly in the Beijing dialect. It is passed on from master to student, through oral teaching, observation and imitation.