Beijing Opera Mask Painting
Chinese Opera is quite different from Western opera. Even types of opera within China is different, but the main characteristics is colourful costumes, make-up, instruments, dancing/martial arts and a very special way of singing. The colours of the costumes illustrate if they are a good or bad person, so for example red means the person is the hero, while white means it’s the bad guy. It’s actually more like a drama or musical theatre than an opera.
An informative video about Beijing Opera.
Three branches of Chinese opera is Beijing Opera (Jīngjù), Shanghai Opera (Hùjù) and Sichuan Opera (Chuānjù). Beijing opera use a lot of heavy drumming during the shows and the stories tend to be about war or the military. It’s the most famous type of Chinese Opera, and the most nationalistic. Shanghai Opera is often sung in Shanghainese and use softer instruments. The storyline is often about drama or love, not war. Now, I have never actually seen a Chinese opera, but if I have to pick one that I would like to see it would have to be Sichuan Opera. Sichuan Opera is known for having a less constrained singing style than the others, and it’s also a lot more like a play. They also combine stunts like face-changing (!!!), fire-spitting and beard-changing. It sounds so cool. Wish I had seen a Sichuan Opera performance last year while I was in Chengdu!
Here is a video clip of face-changing. You can’t even see him do it!
Anyway, last Friday my university organised an evening where we could learn how to paint masks in Beijing Opera style. I chose to paint a hero character, of course. A woman who is the only professional mask painter in Wuhan was there to teach us, they held competitions and a girl performed playing the flute for us while we painted. It was fun to be part of a more cultural Chinese lesson for once and not just learn about grammar. My mask is now proudly hung on my wall, scaring me every night in the dark when I think it’s a real person.
