What does the quintessence of Peking Opera mean?

Peking Opera, once known as Ping Opera, is one of the five major types of Chinese opera. The scene layout focuses on freehand brushwork, the tune is mainly Xipi and Erhuang, and it is accompanied by Huqin, gongs and drums. It is regarded as the quintessence of China and Chinese opera. Sandingjia "tops the list".

Anhui Opera is the predecessor of Peking Opera. Starting from the 55th year of Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1790), the four major Anhui troupes, namely Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai and Hechun, which originally performed in the south, entered Beijing one after another. They cooperated with Han opera artists from Hubei and at the same time It accepted some repertoires, tunes and performance methods of Kun Opera and Qin Opera, and absorbed some local folk tunes. Through continuous exchange and integration, Peking Opera was finally formed.

After the formation of Peking Opera, it began to develop rapidly in the court of the Qing Dynasty until the Republic of China achieved unprecedented prosperity. Peking Opera has traveled all over the world, with Beijing as the center and throughout China, becoming an important medium for introducing and disseminating Chinese traditional art and culture. On November 16, 2010, Peking Opera was included in the "World Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List".

Extended information:

The Peking Opera stage art has formed a set of aspects through the long-term stage practice of countless artists in various aspects such as literature, performance, music, singing, gongs and drums, makeup, facial makeup, etc. Rhythmic and standardized programs that restrict and complement each other. As an artistic means of creating stage images, it is very rich, and its usage is very strict.

If you cannot master these programs, you will not be able to complete the creation of Peking Opera stage art. Since Peking Opera entered the court when it was first formed, its development was different from that of local operas. It is required to express a wider range of life, create more types of characters, have stricter requirements for the comprehensiveness and integrity of its skills, and have higher aesthetic requirements for creating stage images.

Of course, at the same time, its folk and rustic flavor is correspondingly weakened, and its simple and rough style characteristics are relatively weak. Therefore, its performance art tends to be a combination of virtual and real expression techniques, which transcends the limitations of stage space and time to the greatest extent, in order to achieve the artistic realm of "conveying spirit through form, and combining form and spirit". The performance requires exquisiteness and delicacy, and every aspect is in the play.

Reference material: Baidu Encyclopedia-Peking Opera (Chinese dramatic art)