Peking opera

Peking opera (jingju) is China’s best-known stage art, combining singing, speech, acting and acrobatic fighting with lavish costumes and painted faces. It took shape in Beijing from the late 18th century, after opera troupes from Anhui arrived in 1790 for the Qianlong Emperor’s 80th birthday and blended their music with tunes from Hubei and other regions. Roles fall into four main types: sheng (men), dan (women), jing (painted-face characters) and chou (clowns), and for most of its history men played the female roles. The stage is almost bare, so a whip stands for a horse and walking a circle for a long journey, while face colours hint at character, red often for loyalty and white for cunning. The Qing court loved it, Empress Dowager Cixi among its keenest patrons, and UNESCO listed Peking opera as intangible cultural heritage in 2010. It is not the same as Sichuan opera, a separate regional style famous for its lightning-fast face-changing, which you can see in Chengdu.