Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Beijing Opera Performance

Abstract

Before examining the current balance of tradition and innovation in Beijing opera performance, as well as some of the reasons for that balance, a brief review of certain major traditional characteristics of the form seems called for. In terms of both Chinese and international theatrical history, Beijing opera is not an old form. Its genesis did not occur until the end of the 18th century, and it did not emerge as a fully independent, influential theatre form until the mid-I9th century-at about the same time that realism began to replace romanticism and neoclassicism in Europe. Throughout most of its history, performers-rather than playwrights, composers, directors, or performance theorists-have functioned as the aesthetic, creative, and performative center of Beijing opera.1 The majority of Beijing opera plays have simple, easily understood, and well-known plots which were anonymously created or adapted, often by the performers themselves, from novels, popular stories, and earlier literary plays. Focused neither on script nor plot, these plays feature the mental and emotional lives of characters. They reveal the miracle of moments, and do so in several complexly layered which are presented simultaneously. One of these languages is Mandarin Chinese, performed as much for its aesthetic values as for its denotative meaning. Other languages include the pihuang musical language of song and orchestral accompaniment, the language of percussive patterns (luogu dian), and the language of conventional stylized movement-all of which are capable of expressing dense and specific affective meaning. The characters themselves are each representative of a particular role category (hangdang), and therefore typed in terms of sex, general age, level of dignity, and size of expression (i.e., painted face characters [jing or hualian] are larger than life, and the vocal and physical techniques used in their presentation are therefore larger-involve greater volume, broader timbre, and more expansive movements-than those used for other male role categories). But individual characters are by no means stereotypical in terms of their values, personality traits, and reactions to the circumstances in which they are placed. Indeed, the same character in essentially the same situation may be