The performance is coupled by a tune played on wind instruments, stringed instruments and percussion instruments. The chief patterns are guiding pattern, original pattern, slow pattern, quick pattern. The melody may be divided into two parts: 'Xipi' and 'erhong'.

With harmonious rhythms, its melody is graceful and pleasing to the ears. The music is that of the 'plate and cavity style'. The characters may be loyal or treacherous, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, their images being vividly presented.īeijing Opera is mainly about the tales of successive dynasties regarding important historical events, emperors, ministers and generals, geniuses and great beauties, from the ancient times to Yao, Shun, Yu, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period and the dynasties of Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing for 5000 years. In Peking opera there are four main types of roles: sheng (male) dan (young female), jing( painted face,male), and chou (clown, male or female). Peking opera - a number of combined stylized actions:īeijing Opera is a number of stylized action, including singing, dancing, dialogue and acrobatic fighting to tell a story or present different characters and their feelings of happiness, anger, sorrow, surprise, fear and sadness. It is very colourful bright and extremely noisy and bears absolutely no resemblance to western opera. The story is sometimes difficult to follow. For western ears, the Peking Opera might need getting used to. It is rich in repertoire with large number of artists of performance and of audiences. With over half a century of mixture and combination of various kinds of opera there came the present Peking ( Beijing ) opera, the most impressive kind of opera in China. It can date back to the 55th year of the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty(1790) when the four big Huiban opera Troupes entered the capital and mixed with Kunqu opera, Yiyang opera, Hanju opera and Luantan in Beijing's thearetical field at the time. Beijing ( Peking ) opera is a national treasure with a history of over 200 years.

Roles and characters of peking opera