Quick Answer: What Is Peking Opera?
Peking opera, or jingju（京剧，jīngjù）, is a form of Chinese theatre that developed in Beijing. Performers tell stories through singing, stylized speech, acting and martial movement. The voice, the orchestra and the actor’s movements all help a viewer follow what happens.
Actors train in role families with distinctive vocal and physical techniques. A bowed fiddle can carry a singer’s melody, while drum and gong patterns punctuate action. A stage with few objects can represent a room, a journey or a battlefield through gestures and movement.
On a Peking opera stage, an actor can make a dark room visible by reaching out and feeling for a wall. The audience sees every step and still understands that the character cannot see. Knowing a few conventions like this gives a first-time viewer a way into the performance.
How Peking Opera Took Shape in Beijing
In 1790, the Sanqing troupe came to Beijing to perform for the Qianlong emperor’s eightieth birthday. It became one of four companies known collectively as the Four Anhui Troupes. The other companies arrived after Sanqing. The troupe’s arrival gives the history a dated event. The genre took shape as companies and artists worked together in the following decades. [1]
In the nineteenth century, performers from Hubei joined or worked with the Anhui companies. The China National Peking Opera Company traces the genre’s formation to this exchange and to influences from several other traditions, including Kunqu opera and Shaanxi opera. The Beijing stage brought these ways of singing and acting into contact over decades. Peking opera thus sits within a wider field of Chinese opera, with its own repertoire and performing practices. [2]
The Four Role Families
The four main Chinese opera role families give actors a set of techniques for portraying characters. Within a family, training can focus on singing, stylized speech or athletic movement. The classification describes the part onstage, and artists may specialize in roles of a different gender from their own. [3]
| Role family | Typical characters | What to watch or listen for |
|---|---|---|
| sheng（生，shēng） | Male roles, including older men, young men and martial figures | Voice, gait and bearing change with the specialty. |
| dan（旦，dàn） | Female roles with many specialties | A performer may emphasize sustained singing, brisk dialogue or martial movement. |
| jing（净，jìng） | Painted-face characters, often figures of force or authority | Broad physical gestures and a bold painted design help establish the character. |
| chou（丑，chǒu） | Comic or supporting characters, including martial roles | Speech and timing often matter, and many roles use a small white patch on the face. |
A robe, a headdress and a makeup pattern can help an audience recognize a character before the first line. Read Peking opera face painting alongside the character’s part in the story. A color can carry an association, but the whole design and the actor’s delivery give the audience more information.
Singing, Melody and Percussion
Two central melodic systems are xipi（西皮，xīpí） and erhuang（二黄，èrhuáng）. Each provides melodic patterns that singers can use in different rhythmic settings. A singer can stretch a thought across a measured passage or convey urgency with a quicker one. Identifying the melodic system alone gives only part of the musical picture. [3]
The jinghu（京胡，jīnghú）, a small, bright bowed fiddle, is a prominent instrument in the melodic section. Flutes and plucked instruments can join the accompaniment. The percussion section uses drums, gongs, cymbals and clappers. As a singer phrases a line, the fiddle can follow it closely. At an entrance or during a martial sequence, a drum-and-gong pattern can accent a step, a turn or a held pose. [4]
How Movement and Props Tell the Story
Traditional staging can leave much of the space open. An actor’s movement can establish distance, direction and the presence of an object outside the audience’s view. Steps, changes of gaze and pauses follow conventions that performers learn through observation, repetition and correction. The open stage gives viewers a clear sightline to these details. [5]
Try watching where an actor directs their eyes just before a turn or a stop. Then listen for the drum or gong cue around that movement. A pause can hold a pose long enough for the audience to read it, even in a fast scene. UNESCO inscribed Peking opera on its Representative List in 2010, recognizing a living practice that includes these learned ways of moving, singing and acting. [5]
Two Scenes to Start With
In *The Crossroads*, an innkeeper and a traveler fight after mistaking each other’s intentions. The scene takes place at night. In the Beijing company’s performance catalogued by CCTV, Wei Xuelei plays Ren Tanghui and Bi Jiawang plays Liu Lihua. Watch the searches and near misses before following the fight. The actors’ timing lets the audience know what each character perceives in the dark. [6]
*The Drunken Concubine* centers on one character’s disappointment. The character Yang Yuhuan has prepared for a meeting with the emperor. When he goes elsewhere, she drinks at the banquet. In this dan showcase, associated with performer Mei Lanfang, listen to the singing and notice how a gesture or a change in balance can carry the scene forward. [3]
FAQs About Peking Opera
Are Peking opera and Beijing opera the same?
Yes. Both are English names for jingju, the theatre tradition that developed in Beijing.
Do Peking opera performers wear masks?
The familiar painted-face designs are generally applied as makeup. They help identify certain roles and characters.
What language is Peking opera performed in?
The tradition uses stylized Chinese speech and singing with strong Beijing influence. The words and pronunciation follow stage conventions.
Sources
[1] Palace Museum. Sanqing Troupe
[2] China National Peking Opera Company. Formation of Peking Opera
[3] Beijing Municipal Government. Peking Opera
[4] Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection. Jingju Ensemble from China
[5] UNESCO. Peking Opera
[6] CCTV Opera Channel. The Crossroads, performed by Jingju Theatre Company of Beijing