Continuing on from the below post, last night was also spent in the midst of the Amsterdam China Festival. The occasion this time was classical Kun Opera from Shanghai.
Here’s a bit of an introduction. It is over 500 years old but currently only a few groups are left who play this type of Chinese opera.
It was a very very cool evening.
We started off with an introduction into the different types of music and singing that would be used to get an idea of what to expect. Shanghai opera was described as being much more sophisticated and stylized than the more boisterous Beijing Opera (well, the last part is my interpretation after the talk). I immediately started comparing it to Japanese classical theatre: Nō and Kabuki. Well, Chinese opera is definitely different!
The five short pieces that we saw were mostly impressive: acrobatics, expressiveness, costumes, interaction between the actors and the orchestra. Often hilarious with the sounds and singing. But also in movements and so on.
I have to say that the type of ‘sophistication’ was very different from what I was expecting. The stories moved pretty speedy (again, compared with Japanese theatre, not with Western drama), the movements were often haphazard and not very coordinated but it did look very very good.
Now I want to see Beijing Opera. If this was supposed to be ‘sophisticated’ then I’m very curious what Beijing-style will be!
Here’s a bit of an introduction. It is over 500 years old but currently only a few groups are left who play this type of Chinese opera.
It was a very very cool evening.
We started off with an introduction into the different types of music and singing that would be used to get an idea of what to expect. Shanghai opera was described as being much more sophisticated and stylized than the more boisterous Beijing Opera (well, the last part is my interpretation after the talk). I immediately started comparing it to Japanese classical theatre: Nō and Kabuki. Well, Chinese opera is definitely different!
The five short pieces that we saw were mostly impressive: acrobatics, expressiveness, costumes, interaction between the actors and the orchestra. Often hilarious with the sounds and singing. But also in movements and so on.
I have to say that the type of ‘sophistication’ was very different from what I was expecting. The stories moved pretty speedy (again, compared with Japanese theatre, not with Western drama), the movements were often haphazard and not very coordinated but it did look very very good.
Now I want to see Beijing Opera. If this was supposed to be ‘sophisticated’ then I’m very curious what Beijing-style will be!
3 comments:
soooo happy that you like it:)
yeah, there are lots of different styles of operas in China, and you may even suppose they are speaking or I should say-singing in different laugages, coz they r all speaking dialects with the ancient usage of Chinese! We Chinese can't understand what they are singing sometimes:)
The costumes and the makeups may be magnificent for you, I suppose?
We Chinese can't understand what they are singing sometimes
I was actually wondering about that, thanks for the clarification :) Japanese people can hardly understand classical Japanese theater so was curious if the same would go for Chinese opera!
We Chinese can't understand what they are singing sometimes
--:) Singing in the ancient Chinese opera is really a demanding job. Before they learn to sing it, they must be explained the whole story, the charactor's pesonality and what the exact meaning of every word in the lyrics, every body movement and even the facial gesture is precisely fixed. In the old times they took it as an occupation as the Japanese do. So they are really professional.
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