Introduction into the Theatre of Imperial China

Chinese theatre and opera as we know it today developed only rather late in Chinese history, compared to the other genres of the acting profession. Nevertheless its origins lie far back in the very early forms of religion and the first and simple forms of dance and play. Thus not unlike in the West opera and theatre of China root deeply both in the realm of religion and the profane. Those tired of hearing that the Chinese invented practically everything earlier then the rest of the world, will be dismayed to learn that already in the 12th cent. Chinese drama existed in all its characteristic features, while it took our culture several hundred years more to come up with its own variation of the genre.

Early Developments
Formation of elements of Chinese Drama

The earliest forms that can be related to acting are the Shang Dynasty court rituals. Already between the 2nd and 1st millennium BC a set of professions was established. These were priests, magicians and exorcists. They conducted rain-dances, dances for hunt and warfare, the annual spiritual cleansing of the palace, the driving away of evil ghosts from the grave, and also exorcisms. Such shamanistic dance-rituals were accompanied by drums and flutes, and performed at all courts of the Pre-Han Dynasties.

Shamans and Rituals

Such Shamans of the earliest times were called wu. This character goes down to a form of oracle-bone-script which shows a human being, dressed for a ceremony with feathers or yak-tails hanging from both arms, probably meant to sway during a ritual dance. The semantic relation between the wu-shamans and dancing wu (another Chinese character which now has the meaning of dance and dancing) can be seen by the fact that both shaman and dance have their origin in the same Shang dynasty pictograph.

The wu have in fact been originally female shamans and not male shamans, while the term for their male colleagues was xi. In the oldest texts the wu appear by far more often then the xi. Thus it is safe to assume that the beginnings of shamanism in China were female. Only in Zhou times the term wu was also applied to male shamans.

From Ritual to Performance

A big step forward in development lay in the separation of court music and dance in religious and secular forms. By and by the distinction between performance and ritual disappeared. One example was the Great Nuo (Danuo). At this ritual the exorcists, as we just heard, acted, sung and danced, wearing head-dresses, masks, costumes and probably face-painting. The performed roles which were most important were the Twelve Wild Beasts, meant to drive all demons away. Between 500 and 200 BC it became fashionable for the various courts of the feudal lords to employ artists for court-entertainment, such as all popular kinds of performances, like music, acrobats, dance and more. Consequently the court entertainment of this period developed quickly in mainly different forms, while the ritual music of the state-cult remained basically unchanged up to the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Early Influences and Baixi

From Han Dynasty onwards the development of stage arts in China was to a large extend inspired by foreign cultures. Northern and Western influences spiced the traditions of the Central and South China. Even a delegation from the Roman Orient , probably Syrians, came to the court at Luoyang. It all began with the expansion of the Han empire (206 BC—220AD), that brought about enormous changes for Chinese early dance and drama. In addition the court entertainment was largely influenced by the popular music and games of the common people. This genre was called Baixi, the “One Hundred Games”. It contained a combination of all sorts of Han-Chinese and foreign skills and arts, like rope-walking, sword-juggling, balancing on poles, and dances in supernatural and animal disguise.

Baixi stayed extremely popular up to Tang times, though it constantly changed its form and content. The period between the two great dynasties Han and Tang saw the development from puppet plays, marionette, mask dances and small plays to first easy short impromptu sketches. These were of course still far from plays in the modern sense, but important for the development of Chinese drama, as here for the first time a plot and clearly defined characters were used. Famous was the story of “Master Huang of the Eastern Seas”, Donghai Huanggong, a satire against the magicians: There was once a person from Donghai called Huang Gong, who in his youth did magical arts and was able to drive away tigers. At the waist he wore a red knife and with a dark red silk shawl he bound his hair up. When he grew old he drank over the measures, so that he no longer was able to repeat his earlier magic. One day a white tiger was seen at the eastern coast and Huang Gong took his red knife to subdue him. But his magical skills didn’t work then and subsequently he was killed by the tiger. Now groups of three people habitually use this story as a play.

Gewu xiaoxi

To the same category, though still another step forward, belonged the Small Plays of Dance and Song, the Gewu xiaoxi. They flourished mainly between the 4th and the 7th. century, but were still performed in Tang times. All those plays dance combined a simple plot and probably an improvised text. The roles followed a fixed pattern and seem to have produced a kind of role type, like the female hero, the evil villain and the stupid country bumpkin. Some of the plays might have been, according to the descriptions of historical sources, a kind of slapstick sketch, which may well be counted among the direct ancestors of the drama.

Another important feature of foreign culture that quickly gained the favour of the Chinese audience was the Barbarian Dance, the Huwu. Later in Tang times the Hu-barbarian appeared frequently as a popular figure in folk and court dance, but it was during the time between Han and Tang, that he became really prominent.

Game Versus Play

The synthesis of different kinds of performance, like of Baixi, sketch acting and acrobatics might not have directly lead to the birth of drama, but have caused a consciousness for the possibilities of drama. In that context it is interesting to have a look at the Chinese terms for play and act: Originally the words for “game” and “play” were identical: xi. This term stood for all sorts of entertainment, acrobatics and sport, down to children’s games. In that way it is comparable to the Latin word ludus, the Anglo-Saxon pleg, the English play and game, or the German word spielen. A second terminus with the same meaning was ju. At later times it was combined with xi to create the Chinese word for “drama” xiju. But xiju does not at all imply a full scale drama performance, but refers also to market place or back street performances.

Influence from Sanskrit Drama

Presumably from India came still another source of influence that most probably has incited the development of drama: Together with Buddhism Sanskrit Drama was introduced to China via the Silk Road. Sanskrit Drama was already fully developed in the first centuries of our time, and it must have been known to the Chinese court at least in Tang Dynasty.

Like all dynasties that had set out to reunify China, also the Tang went beyond the borders of the empire and vastly expanded their territory. The artists of this period made a great step forward in the adaptation of musical instruments and styles of the North and West, but also in foreign dance techniques. These, combined with the lyrics of Tang poetry created a whole new range of song and music, that soon was to be performed all over: at court, in the markets and specially in the famed wine houses of the Capital Changan.

Buddhist Influence

During the pre-Tang period with its various short living dynasties, the different courts did their best to surpass each other in splendour. Consequently all the different sorts of actors and entertainers were a much sought after profession. Now, in the following centuries of stability and peace, the stable conditions again supported the creation of new forms of theatre. A vast bulk of surviving literature gives a vivid impression of diversified and extravagant entertainments, as well as of religious dramatic activities. The most prominent of such activities were the Bianwen, the “transformation texts”, that came up around the 8th. century. Bianwen were a new sort of texts, in which for the first time in Chinese drama, alternatively prose and song was used. As it was their aim to propagate Buddhism to the common people the parts of direct speech and the dialogues were written in colloquial language. The verse parts were much regulated, consisting mainly of lines with 7, more rarely with 5 or 6 syllables. In contrast to them the prose part followed no fixed rules, but reflected the rough vernacular language of the market places, obviously to attract the low class audience. Bianwen have fuelled the further development of real drama in that way, that their structure and language was to a large extend also used in the much later opera. The most famous example was the play: Da Muqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen, Mahamaudgalyayana’s Search for His Mother in Hell. This story relates the adventures of a faithful Buddhist that journeys down to hell to save the soul of his sinful mother.

Maturation
Different forms of play start to emerge

A factor hardly to be overestimated for the development of the arts was the economical boom of the Tang. The transfer of money and goods between the rich trade clans of all corners of China influenced the city-culture. In peaceful times, as a rule, money is earned more easily and people are ready to “waste” it more light-hearted then in unsafe periods. The new wealth no doubt stimulated the building of tea and wine houses, but also the construction of whole pleasure districts and of establishments, were people came to enjoy play-acts and other entertainments. The guild of actors and entertainers, in normal years the lowest class and much looked down upon, now saw their chances coming. They went for their share of the new prosperity, and they served the audience with ever new plays and acts.

Adjutant Play

The speciality of those plays was its use of a rough sense of humour, that was appreciated by all walks of life. Two or more actors per performance showed all kinds of satirical and comic themes, and they were very frequent and popular during the whole Tang period. A very popular example must have been the so called Adjudant Play, the Canjunxi. It came up during the 8th century, and its known from references in Tang literature that it came very close to real theatre acting. The play was accompanied by woodwind instruments, strings and percussion. It goes down to the story of an official that has stolen a certain amount of silk from the tax funds. When he was arrested he was not punished but pardoned under one condition: From now on he had to appear at every banquet to confess his offence and be made the laughing stock by the actors of the palace. This soon turned into a play, performed all over the country.

Role Categories

While the Gewu Xiaoxi showed first a distinct subdivision in scenes and role-like characters, the Adjutant Plays went a step further: It was the first genre to use role categories. Such role-categories, although they changed name and features since Tang, are one of the main characteristics of Chinese drama and one of the most distinct differences to Western drama and opera.

All in all we can say that by the end of Tang Dynasty the basic features of Chinese opera, as we know it today, was firmly established. The main difference to the later forms of drama is the lack of knowledge of authorship. It is unknown whether certain plays have been made up, or whether, which is more probable, the majority of Tang plays were directly and spontaneously adopted from folklore traditions like storytelling and ballads.

First Theatre School

The main big step forward in Chinese stage-art was the founding of the first school of entertaining arts — a first sort of drama-school. It was emperor Xuanzong (713—756), better known by his canonical name Minghuang, who in the year 714 founded the famous Liyuan , the Pear Garden Academy. The roots of professional Chinese theatre lay here, in the Liyuan of the Tang Capital Changan. The main subjects taught in the academy were singing, music and dance for men and women alike. The term Pear Garden came to be the synonym for the acting profession in general, but also for the Chinese drama of later times. Accordingly an actor would call himself a Liyuan dizi, an Apprentice of the Pear Garden. Still nowadays this title is much used among actors.

Minghuang’s gratest passion was his love for music and drama, which he shared with his favourite concubine Yang Guifei, who was much engaged in song and dance. It is said, that he himself used to play the role of the chou (clown), and still today the clown enjoys special respect and privileges. After his death Minghuang was canonized as the founding father of the Chinese theatre and became its leading guarding patron deity, though in competition to a variety of other, more locally worshiped deities. Until today offerings are presented in the xifang, the backroom behind the stage, in front of his portrait.

Boom of Entertainment

It was during the period when the Jin (1115—1234) and Southern Song Dynasty (1027—1279) shared most of China between them, that the greatest growth of theatre and related entertainments could be observed: From a variety of texts it is known, that the courts of Liao (916—1125), Jin and Song provided a wide range of performances, that entertained foreign ambassadors as well as the court local community.

If the Tang period was a time of growth for the entertainment profession in general, the Song period was equally important specially for theatre culture. We have to imagine that theatre troupes performed at each market place, street corner and in every temple court. They all profited from the economical boom of the biggest metropolises of the world. In cities like Bianliang (Kaifeng), Linan (Hangzhou), and Zhongdu (Peking) the traveller would find amusement-quarters, called Washi. These Washi there contained multitudinous theatre tents or even solid build theatre halls, that could take several hundred visitors. By the middle of the Song period many theatre names included the character lou, high storied building, which indicates that these buildings were tower like wooden constructions with several stores and balconies, from which the audience would follow the happenings on stage.

Zaju and Yuanben

The genre mainly performed here was an early sort of Zaju (Diversified Plays), containing short plays, storytelling, shadow-play, puppet-plays, and many more. It was broadly divided in Xiao Zaju and Da Zaju, and further also in “supernatural Zaju” and “rake Zaju”. These labels hint on the contents of the plays: the former was most probably concerned with ghost-stories, demons and gods, the latter with romance, sex and love stories.

The other important genre of that time was the Yuanben. The name itself means “text books of the brothels”, which might not have to be taken literary, but it nevertheless gives an impression of the character of the entertainment quarters. The difference between Yuanben and Zaju seem to have been marginal, and referred mainly to the area in which they were most popular. Zaju was a Southern tradition, while Yuanben was essentially a Northern phenomenon.

From Song and Jin times an abundance of plays are known at least by name. Most early Zaju and Yuanben have been lost, but there is a small number of plays that survived in Yuan and Ming dramas (1368—1644) and in Ming novels. By the Song period all components of Chinese drama already existed as established traditions: The telling of tales with drama-like plots, colloquial speech mixed with verse, recitation, dialogue, singing, chorus, musical accompaniment, background percussion, dance, acrobatics, slapstick, dressing up in costume and make-up, females impersonating men and male impersonating women. The topics that were put on stage covered a wide range: from love-stories to satires about the officialdom and to dramas about ghosts, gods and demons. Usually a full program of Zaju contained:

1) musical prelude, dancing, and a little play as a curtain raiser
2) brief sketch, or any other short item of acrobatics or dancing
3) the real performance: the Zaju-proper, or, in the North, a Yuanben play
4) the afterpiece: a comic sketch, like “A Country Pumpkin in Bianliang”
5) the musical round-off

Role Types

One of the most important features of Chinese drama are the role types. Actors already from very early times on specialized to perform a certain type of character, like “the young hero” or “the elder lady”. Once trained in their field they would go on to perform this role type for the rest of their acting career, trying to reach the utmost possible perfection. Only very daring and talented actors attempted to learn a second role type. Often an actor would train his children from very early age onwards in his role, thus founding his/her own tradition and school. Not uncommon were actor families, that handed down their special skills ever generations. Up to the present day such famous actor-clans live in Peking, trying to keep up their time honoured tradition in the world of Gongfu movies and Karaoke.

Over the different periods of Chinese theatre history the number of these role types varied strongly. In the plays of the Jin and Song period 5 role types were established, but every different theatre genre throughout history used its own number and title of roles. Here, just as one example out of dozens, the role types of Song Zaju and their functions: The officially main-role was the male hero, called moni. This did not mean that he was also the most popular actor on stage. Up to today the clown enjoys at least the same popularity of the audience. This was no different with Zaju and Yuanben. The clown, called fujing, had much sharper dialogues, and his acting was far more witty and entertaining. Equally important for the comedy was his partner, the fumo jester. The fumo could be easily recognized by his requisite: A kind of cudgel, which in the early days was a simple cucumber, but later a soft, leather-cushioned club. Further there was the zhuanggu, a Mandarin-role, and a play leader, the yinxi, that spoke i.e. the prologue. For musical accompaniment just one flute player was employed: He provided an introductory part, rounded-off all musical functions and played a short afterpiece to “drive” the audience out of the premises.

Nanxi
Southern Theatre

In the early 12th century, between 1119 and 1125, a new form of theatre came up, called Nanxi, the “southern plays”. Its antecedent was the Southern Song Zaju, while in the North the Jin Yuanben developed into the famous Yuan Zaju. The cradle of this new genre lay in the South of the Song empire, in Wenzhou, close to Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, and its main characteristic was not only that it used mainly southern language. The real novelty was that it combined the refined court music of the Song with traditional and local Zhejiang folk tunes. The base of the Nanxi tunes was the ci, a form that had derived from Tang and Song poetry, and that comprised a variety of poetic forms, rhyme patterns and tunes. In combination with the traditional and folk tunes it was now labelled Nanqu, “southern qu”. Later Ming sources describe Nanqu tunes as “meandering and slow, drawn-out endlessly, graceful, charming, seductively lilting, floating and drifting one away, so that one loses all firmness”. All Nanxi plays laid special emphasis on the sung part, while acrobatics and acting was rather neglected. Thus the label “Singspiel” might describe the character of the “southern plays” better then our understanding of theatre opera. The singing in the Nanxi could be solo, in a duet or even with three or more people in a chorus. Love-stories dominated the repertoire strongly, and they were supported by large sections of arias, in which the lovers wooed each other with all sentiment, and laid their heart open to the public. Quite a few of the Nanxi plays ended tragic, but there existed also comedies and satirical farces. All these new stories were more voluminous, dramatically complex and stringent constructed then anything performed ever before. Still the names of the playwrights is not recorded, as most of the texts were written by anonymous playwright-studios, so called Shuhui (Literary Societies). For the first time in Chinese opera history librettos were written, that are probably the first real antecedents of the extensive Opera-literature of later times. This assumption is strongly supported by the second name of Nanxi, which is Xiwen, playtexts, literature of the theatre.

Form and First Librettos

Love-stories made up the majority of Nanxi plays, thus the ideal male and female hero were the main characters on stage. And as handsome, but somewhat bookworm-like scholars or beautiful and virtuous young ladies do generally carry a certain preset stock of features, the roles of the male and female hero turned now into regular role types: The old set of five role types was enlarged up to seven, and among them the main four role types as they do still exist today appeared: sheng, dan, jing and chou, male and female hero, plus two slapstick clowns.

The first Nanxi play that we have a complete libretto of is the “Top Graduate Zhang Xie”. Like several other of the southern plays it is about a young scholar that is unfaithful to his wife. He leaves for the capital to take part in the palace examinations. But when he turns out the top candidate he forgets his companion of poorer days and marries the daughter of an influential minister. Not enough with leaving her in poverty and shame, he also attempts to kill her with his sword. But miraculously she survives his poor swordsmanship and after a few rather astonishing turns of the plot the two get reunited and live (even more surprising) happily ever after. Similar Nanxi plays show a somewhat different result. There the evildoer is struck by lighting or haunted to death by the demon of is deceased spouse. If the plot of those plays seem strange or absurd to us, we have to keep in mind, that they contain quite a portion of black humour. The two clowns and jesters served the audience with slapstick and cracking jokes, but it is the more the subtle dry irony of the main roles that created wit and suspense. Still the scholarly elite was reserved about the Nanxi, namely due to the folk elements. Though Nanxi contained more verse in the spoken parts and thus might have been on a higher poetic level then northern drama, the way it treated romance and love was too vulgar and at parts far too “direct”, to be openly relished by stiff necked Confucians.

Stories

Though the Nanxi was musically probably the most developed of the early drama genres, it was initially rather limited in its range of topics. This was the main reason why in the middle of the 13th century, around 1270, Northern Drama, the Beiju, became predominant. Beiju had a wider choice of themes, as it drew from a vast variety of stories. Love stories stood for just a small part of its themes, and they were treated more delicately. Others were stories of the supernatural, of ghosts and gods, political and historic topics, and many more. Still Nanxi continued to be performed throughout the 13th and 14th century, though on a smaller scale. If might well have declined to complete oblivion if not by 1360 it experienced a sudden and unexpected revival. It was not more than the appearance of one single but outstanding play: “The Lute” by Gao Ming, based on one of the earliest Nanxi plays, “Zhao Chaste Maid”, which tells the story a young scholar Cai Boxie leaves for the capital to take part in the palace examination. Like in “Top Graduate Zhang Xie” (s.a.) he wins the first place, immediately forgets about his former fianc» and marries another woman. But his luck doesn’t last long, as Heaven duly rewards his unfaithfulness and crushes him with a lightning. Gao Ming in his “Lute” was dismayed by the unfavourable light in which the young hero was shown. He set out to rescue the honour of that young scholar. In his story he is utterly innocent — a mere victim of the circumstances. Shortly after his leaving a famine strikes Zhejiang. Though Zhao, his young wife, does everything to save his parents, they die of hunger. Meanwhile Cai Boxie sends money and letters home, but they are not delivered by the messenger. After many turns and twists all misunderstandings are cleared up, the plot reaches a happy reunion of the loving couple in the capital and Cai Boxie ends up living with his two virtuous wives in blissful harmony. “The Lute” made such a strong impression on the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, that he ordered it to be performed every single day in the Inner Palace. He further sent for Gao Ming to employ him for his theatre. But the artist preferred his freedom to a promising but also perilous career among the society at the court. When the imperial messengers came he feigned madness and thus avoided the unwelcome honours.

The Rise of Playwrights

Among all periods of Chinese history it is doubtless the Yuan Dynasty (1271/80—1368) that deserves most to be called the high time of Chinese Opera. During that period drama, the famous Yuan Zaju, was the leading means of literary expression, outshining both poetry and the novel. Also, as a novum, playwrights appeared. Authorship switched from anonymous Literary Societies, like they were common for Nanxi plays, to individual personalities. The melodies and also the language were from the North. All texts, including the songs, used a direct and clear language, and were easily understandable — also by an uneducated audience. This is in sharp difference to the elaborate way of singing and the highly poetic classical verse of the Nanxi.

One of the main reasons for the theatre boom in Yuan times was the political situation after the downfall of the Jin and Song Dynasties: China had always been the chief aim and fiercest enemy of the Mongols, and it had resisted them bitterly. When Kublai Khan had finally completed the conquest of China, he thoroughly mistrusted all members of the former political elite. The political system of the Chinese empire rested on the ideals and rules of Confucianism, represented by the class of scholars and an elaborate educational system. On the way to wealth and power the average student had to pass a series of examinations, after which he would most probably be appointed an official position. As the examination system stood symbolic for the old order, but also because its function was to perpetuate it, the Mongolian rulers thought it fit to abolish it. Thus they cut off all regular possibilities to get promoted into the higher circles. Unable to achieve an official position, large parts of the gentry impoverished or had to choose a profession much below their status. Naturally they and their families were the main adversaries of the Mongols. This negative attitude of the Mongolian ruling circles towards the Confucians and vice versa was an influential force which supported the development of drama substantially. Many scholars turned their creative energies from studying the classics to writing plays. All the centuries before writing librettos for theatre troupes was much looked down upon. But now, in these new circumstances, intellectuals were proud to show their literary skills in composing songs and texts for the opera. For many it was also the only way to at least limited success and income.

Political Control

Often one reads the assumption that Yuan writers used drama to express patriotic spirit and to ridicule the Mongolian intruders. Quite a large group of plays take indeed great pleasure in describing various groups of foreigners as “barbarians” and as uncivilized. But one should not forget that the playwrights were professionals. It was their chief purpose to entertain, and making fun about another people does very often guarantee laughter. Only some relative few dramas use indeed Mongolian words, transcribed into Chinese, and can thus clearly be identified as political protest. Other political statements could very well be later additions of the Ming editors, as the Ming government was also no paragon of democracy.

In contrast to all this antipathy the attitude of the Mongols to theatre and all entertaining arts was nevertheless more then positive: It is commonly known that artisans and actors were among the very few whose lives were spared, when the Mongols conquered a besieged city. In times of peace they supported the acting profession in every possible way and also employed large theatre groups for their entertainment. Successful playwrights got donations, quite similar to state scholarships of today, and their plays were ordered to be performed all over the provinces. Still they kept in mind that theatre in general has an immense potential of propaganda and agitation that could be readily used against them. One skilfully written play could easily arouse a rebellion against the foreign lords. Out of caution the Mongolian government, but also all Chinese governments to follow, kept close control over the theatre troupes and they took great pain to censor librettos if seemed faintly necessary. To support the morals of the troupes any singing and performing was strictly prohibited for the military. According to a Yuan edict the composing of songs was to be punished with the death penalty. Anyone hoping that the “civilized” emperors of the Han (Chinese) might have a more positive attitude were soon too learn better: In the year 1398 it was prohibited for the officers and soldiers of the capital to learn singing on pain of having their tongue cut out. Similar those who played football and backgammon risked their hands and feet to be cut off. Furthermore a ban was issued on performing so called throne plays — plays that were offensively familiar about emperors, sages and kings. Librettos had to be handed over and burnt. All those who had not done so in five days time were to be executed together with their entire clan. And these penalties, though considered even harsh in their own days, were actually carried out also.

Yuan Zaju
The heyday of dramatists

The structure of Yuan Zaju was very regulated. It consisted of four main acts, called zhe. This is in stark contrast to Nanxi, where there could be as many acts as the author saw fit — from three up to over forty. Each of the main Zaju acts included a number of songs with qu-melodies. Quite some of them came from outside China or were taken from northern folk melodies. Regretfully these tunes have not been written down or must have been lost completely, as no Yuan music has survived to the present day. All we know is that they have been sung generally solo, and that the leading male and female roles were the only ones to sing. To regulate it further only one of them would sing in any certain act. Some plays were even more extreme: There only one leading role, male or female sang throughout the play. Also the instrumentation was rather simple: As melody instruments a dizi transverse flute and a pipa (four stringed lute), were used. The rhythm section consisted just of the ban clapper and a drum.

Among the many names of Zaju authors that have come down to us, the one of Guan Hanqing (1240 to ca 1320), a citizen of Dadu (Peking) is the most renowned, as he is called the inventor of Yuan Zaju. Though already before him most of the necessary components have existed, it was his genius that combined them to a completely new style of drama. But Guan Hanqing was not only unusually talented, but also extremely productive: He wrote over 60 plays, and for them he drew from a vast fund of topics: Apart from romantic stories about concubines and courtesans, scholars and warriors, drunkards and ghosts, he wrote also a play on Judge Bao, the wise and strict judge and detective. This famous literary figure goes down to a historic person that had lived in Song dynasty in Hefei/Anhui. Judge Bao plays had been very popular specially in Yuan Zaju, but also in Ming and Qing drama. The judge, of whom was said that a smile on his face was as rare as a drop of clear water in the Yellow River, brought justice into a world of arbitrariness. The way he fought the wicked nobleman or punished the greedy bullying bureaucrat, made Judge Bao one of the most popular characters of Chinese drama. Apart from the judge and a serious of historic plays on the war stricken period of the Three Kingdoms (220—265) it was one of Guan Hanqing’s characteristics to choose mostly women for the main roles of his plays. The most famous of them was doubtless the beautiful widow in the tragedy “Injustice to Dou E”. In this play a vagrant tries to force a young and virtuous widow to marry him. To reach his goal he even poisons his father and threatens Dou E by blackmailing her, if she wouldn’t give her consent. She refuses to give in and only when her old mother in law is about to be tortured she confesses the crime she has not committed. Before the execution she asks for a long white silken flag to be suspended from a pole. She prophesies that if she had been innocently decapitated her blood shall flow up the flag, snow will fall in summer and three years of drought would follow. All her prophecies come true. Finally her father clears up the case and her soul is released to heaven.

Dominance of the Main Actress

The preference of Guan Hanqing for the dan role type reflected a distinct special feature of Yuan drama: the dominant role of the main actress. Yuan and Ming literary sources contain many enthusiastic biographies on female actors, but hardly any on the male. The actresses were adored by the male audience, rich and influential men tried to win their favours, and ministers, generals, artist and playwrights all viewed to take them as their wives. Not seldom they were brilliant composers, poets and writers too. Many of them had command over a perfect memory. It was not uncommon for an acclaimed actress to paste the names of all plays and arias she knew along the walls, pillars and beams of the theatre-hall, being sometimes several hundred, and the audience could choose out of them whichever play it liked. The same biographies also tell us the special skills of the respective artist, being Zaju and often also Nanxi or even Yuanben alike. The very fact that these genres are mentioned in one breath indicates clear enough that they existed contemporarily and that the line between them was all but strictly drawn. The question why similar eulogies do not exist of the male actors can only partly be answered by the scarceness of educated females that would have recorded their fancies to posterity, or of women that independently visited the theatre houses. Quite a few names and works of female writers of the Song and Yuan time are known. But either the acts and looks of the male Zaju actors have made no lasting impression as to create a club of female enthusiasts, or, which is no less probable, it was just then not en vogue to be fan of a male actor. Their time was still to come, but it had to wait another 500 years.

Kunqu Opera
And Local Opera Styles

The beginning of the Ming period saw the rise of new forms of drama, and the fall of others. Nanxi and Zaju traditions continued, though Zaju adopted many features of the Southern Plays: Southern music influenced the northern tunes, or was used alternatively in duets between loving couples. Duets were formerly unknown in the Northern tradition, but usual in Nanxi. By and by Zaju declined in the favour of the audience, and the Northern tunes disappeared from the stages. But though the Southern Drama enjoyed a new boom, it also experienced some alterations: By the beginning of the Ming Dynasty it was called Chuanqi, “marvel tale”, or “tales of the weird”. “Chuanqi” has also been the name of a genre of Tang novellas. The new Chuanqi blossomed in the transitional period between the Yuan and the Ming and developed in the 16th century again into a new style, the famous Kunqu.

The Ming dynasty was the great time of Local Operas, of difangxi. Everywhere different music styles developed, mostly based on the local traditional music. One of these local opera styles was Kunqu, from the area of Kunshan, near Suzhou, not far from the origins of the Nanxi. It can be attributed to a handful of acclaimed musicians, that were versed in the play of local music, but also in the northern qu-melodies of Jiangsu and in classical southern tunes. These styles they carefully combined with Yiyangqiang, another musical form from Jiangsu province, that by that time had already won national fame. The result was Kunqu, soft and mellow in character, with some vigour, borrowed from the northern elements it had absorbed. The key instrument was the flute, only accompanied by a clapper. For a small scale performance no other instruments were needed to accompany the singing, but for large performances a whole orchestra with practically all instruments of the time was employed, including transverse- and end blown-flutes (dizi and xiao), sheng mouth organs and different types of plucked instuments like pipa. Altogether they created a smooth and delicate music. Initially Chuanqi was distinctly different to Kunqu, but when Chuanqi began to use mainly Kunqu for its accompaniment, the latter was used for covering the combination of both traditions.

For the Educated or for the Masses

As Kunqu consisted originally mainly of folk-melodies, it was designed as a theatre for the masses. But rapidly it achieved such a success, that it turned into the leading drama form of Ming China. By the mid-Ming period Kunqu was unrivalled and performed throughout all provinces. Be it because of the very refined music, or because of the elegant classic poetry by the playwrites, but perhaps mostly because of the support it received from the educated gentry, Kunqu developed more and more into an aristocratic form. But such an elaborate creation of a new style had also certain drawbacks. One of them was, that the new playwrights had been more concerned with the new form and polished language, how they said something, then what they said. The result was plays which were perfect in terms of structure and music, but didn’t have anything to say to a broad audience. Their language became more and more stiff, their stories repetitive and their characters stereotyped. Even the old patrons of Kunqu, the rich merchants, the educated and the officials, the emperor and his circle were perfect were perfect — they all lost by and by enthusiasm. By then the masses had already turned away from this form of upper class culture. They searched for fresher and livelier entertainment, and they found it in the Difangxi, the Local Popular Opera Styles, that had developed into the form of entertainment for the “common people”. While the common Chinese people loved it, the officials were rather unhappy with the increasing popularity of regional drama. To show delight in such banal kind of entertainment would have meant loosing face for any educated person. But one after the other the gentry and the ruling elite discretely dissociated from their Kunqu troupes and employed local opera troupes. By the end of the 19th century even the palace turned its attention towards the newer forms of drama. After the climax of its development in the end of the Ming and the beginning of Qing the aristocratic Kunqu Opera rapidly dwindled away to almost complete oblivion. Still — for a small (but stable) amount of drama purists and music enthusiasts Kunqu is performed up to the present day, and for many an specialist it is still the most elegant and charming form of opera that China has to offer.

Rise of Local Operas

In the meantime the Local Operas rose steadily from a period of already great importance and prosperity. The succeeding theatre forms of the Qing assimilated most features of Zaju and Kunqu, and soon became the leading dramatic force to dominate the Chinese stage for the rest of the modern period.

By the end of Qing Dynasty several hundred different styles of difangxi had developed throughout in China. Not all of them were influential or long lasting. Some of them were only played in a few counties, while others spread over whole provinces, pushing each other frequently from the hit list of public favour. Difangxi styles developed their individual shape in many different ways: They differed from each other in the dialects of their libretto, in their music, their repertoire and the number and title of role types performed. Important was also the way such plays had been transmitted from generation to generation. Often they have been shut off from the outside world for hundreds of years, thus they preserved distinct regional characteristics.

The performances of regional operas had the flavour of strong local patriotism, and were often organized by clans for high religious or seasonal festivals. If the village clans had no theatre groups of their own, they hired itinerant playing companies. Such travelling companies moved from village to village, and their repertoire lasted if necessary for seven days without longer breaks than it takes to eat and get drunk.

The Peking Opera
Creation of a long melting process

Among all the multitude of regional opera styles there was one to achieve national predominance and fame. Up to the present day Peking Opera is the most important of all forms of traditional Chinese theatre. It developed during the middle period of Qing dynasty and soon became the best known regional style. The Peking Opera is in fact nothing else but another regional opera. The difference to other difangxi is nevertheless, that it was created by the fusion of two different styles, and that its origin can be relatively precise be dated on the period between 1780 and 1790. It was when the 70th birthday of emperor Qianlong in 1779 was arranged, that lots of different regionally famous opera troupes had been invited to come to Peking to perform for the emperor. After the festivities most of the troupes found it more desirable to stay in the capital then to return to the province. This may be understood as a prelude to the birth of Peking drama. The real date of birth of Peking Opera came only ten years later, in 1790. At the 80th birthday of Qianlong again a number of theatre troupes were invited. This time they arrived from Anhui, the then leading province in the developing of drama. They were performers of two different local musical styles, the Erhuangqiang and Xipiqiang, the latter originally from Hubei. Both styles had already a long history before they arrived in Peking. Erhuangqiang was a descendant from Yiyangqiang and came originally from Jiangxi province and was specially known for its acrobatics. From Jiangxi it had spread in the early period of Qing to all southern provinces, namely Anhui. Xipiqiang was one of the many variants of the Northern Clapper Opera (Bangziqiang).

From Local Opera to National Opera

These two separate traditions, once out of their natural habitat, quickly intermingled to a new style called Pihuangju. The combination of the features of them both became characteristic of Peking Opera and created the basis of the Peking Opera of today, but also of the opera styles of Canton, Hubei and other regions. And as this hybrid form was at that occasion first performed in Peking, the year 1790 has been commonly regarded as the birth of the Peking Opera.

After 1790 many other theatre troupes, mainly from the south, came into the capital. Among them it were again the Anhui troupes that seem to have achieved the greatest fame, as the new theatre development was labelled the Four Great Anhui Companies, a name that hinted to the four big stages, that dominated the capital during the 19th century Already in the 18th century the new opera was so popular, that the emperor had it prohibited in the Inner Quarters of the palace and for the military, as it speeded up the “degeneration” and “weakening” of the Manchu Banner men. But in spite of all prohibitions the opera rose in popularity among the common people and the Manchu nobles alike. At the end of the 19th century the repertoire of the Peking Opera comprised already over 700 pieces. Everywhere in the capital people were humming popular tunes of the latest performances. Characteristic for the Peking Opera music was the absence of soft and melodic instruments, like the flute that dominated the Kunqu tunes. The leading instrument was the huqin, the two stringed “barbarian fiddle”, with its screechy and ear splitting but also vigorous sound. The star of the old Anhui troupes sank only with the Boxer Uprising, when all of the famous troupes vanished form the scene. The acting guild played not a small role in this rebellion, and their fate was closely connected to the crushing of the Boxers: Not one of the 19th century opera houses survived the turn of the century. In the cause of the fight between the Boxers and the invasion of the eight powers the great theatre houses were demolished. A great number of the actors had perished, and the beginning of the 20th century saw new companies in control of the Peking stages.