Generally, a red face represents loyalty and bravery a black face, valor yellow and white faces, duplicity and golden and silver faces, mystery.īesides color, lines also function as symbols. Audiences who are familiar with opera can know the story by observing the facial painting as well as the costumes. This technique may have originated from ancient religions and dance. Exaggerated designs are painted on each performer's face to symbolize a character's personality, role, and fate. What appeals to foreigners most might be the different styles of facial make-up, which is one of the highlights and requires distinctive techniques of painting.
For Chinese, especially older folks, to listen to this kind of opera is a real pleasure. These dialogs also promoted the development of distinct literary styles, such as Zaju in the Yuan Dynasty. Accompanied by traditional musical instruments like the Erhu, the gong, and the lute, actors present unique melodies - which may sound strange to foreigners - as well as dialogues which are beautifully written and of high literary value. Gradually it combined music, art and literature into one performance on the stage. It evolved from folk songs, dances, talking, antimasque, and especially distinctive dialectical music. Performances were watched in tearooms, restaurants, and even around makeshift stages. During the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911), it became fashionable among ordinary people.
Since the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) it has been encouraged by court officials and emperors and has become a traditional art form. From that time on, performers of Chinese opera were referred to as 'disciples of the pear garden'. During the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), the Emperor Taizong established an opera school with the poetic name Liyuan (Pear Garden). Chinese opera together with Greece tragic-comedy and Indian Sanskrit Opera are the three oldest dramatic art forms in the world.
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