Peking Opera is also called Ping Opera or Jing Opera. It is the most influential type of traditional Chinese opera, spreading widely across the country centered in Beijing.
From the 55th year of the Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (1790), the four major Anhui opera troupes of Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai, and Hechun went to Beijing one after another, worked with the performers of Han Tune Opera from Hubei, accepted some lists of operas, tunes and performing methods of Kunqu Opera and Shaanxi Opera, and absorbed some local and folk tunes. Peking Opera was finally formed through constant communication and combination.
Peking Opera has a set of standardized ways of manifestation in its literature, acting, music and stage art. Its tune is actually a variation of clapper style, with Erhuang and Xipi as the main tune. The accompaniment of Peking Opera comes in Quiet Setting and Dynamic Setting: for the Quiet Setting, the Huqin fiddle (Jinghu fiddle) is the main instrument; for the Dynamic Setting, drum clappers are mainly used. The roles of Peking Opera fall into Sheng (male), Dan (female), Jing (painted face), Chou (clown), Za (extra), Wu (martial roles), and Liu (gangster), with the latter three no longer classified as specialization. Each role has a set of performing procedures with the chant, recital, acting, and martial formation all revealing its unique aspects. With historical stories as the main content for performance, Peking Opera has about 1,300 programs, with those often on the play being three to four hundred.
Peking Opera is popular nationwide and has a wide influence, often called the State Opera. The performance system named after Mei Lanfang has been regarded as the representative of the Oriental performance system and is one of the world's three major performance systems. Peking Opera is an important form of traditional Chinese folk culture, many artistic elements of Peking Opera have been used as symbols of traditional Chinese culture.
In May 2006, Peking Opera was approved by the State Council to enter the State-Level Intangible Cultural Heritage List. [2] In 2010, it entered the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.