Opera Evolution

Chinese opera has made some great evolutions these few years. They added some new elements to their performances, their sets and their looks. Some evolutions made some nice changes but some are changes are just so.. unnecessary.

Kunqu
Kunqu is really a very old form of opera. It almost died off but since it has gotten the UNESCO, the chinese government has given some help to help revive it but it was not significant.

Kunqu evolved recently. It has tried some new methods of performance and tried to attract younger audience.

Last year, ShangKun made a 'Yi Pian Tao Hua Hong' 一片桃花红 and included alot of new elements in the show.

Picture from 一片桃花红

You can see they changed their make up and costumes. Nice touch!

I know I posted this photo before but it's so nice I want to post again, can?

Digress abit, the one who acted as the emperor is Zhang Jun. He is one of the later generation kunqu actor and has received alot of good remarks for his performances.

He graduated in 1994 from Shanghai Kunqu School. He is now part of the Shanghai kunqu troupe. I have seen a few of his performances before. He is not bad for his age but he can be better.

He once did a mudanting short excerpt with a geisha performer. That excerpt does not requires du li niang to sing. It only require her to move. Below is a picture of the show.

I have seen the video clip before. It's a bit weird, this geisha dancer is a male by the way.

Back to 一片桃花红. I think the plot is rather nice. I like it but unfortunately, I don't have a chance to see it. Hopefully, I can get to see it during the Kunqu festival. Yay~~ 一片桃花红 did some changes to the looks of the performers and they did some nice delicate sets as seen in the phots. There is another new age Kunqu done to attract the young audience, that is the now famous, 青春版牡丹亭.

This 青春版牡丹亭 did not do much changes to the looks of the performers, they still put on the usual costumes and hairstyles just that they changed the materials of the costumes.

青春版牡丹亭 is named like this because the main actors in this show are quite young, around 20+ years old. In this show, they changed the music by adding in a few more instruments and composed some music for the dancing parts of the show. I think the music is really nice.

For the set, they chose to keep it simple, with just a picture in the background or just a 屏风。The stage looked very spacious with the simple set. I like the feel of it. However, I don't understand why they made 2 holes on the stage. I was so worried that the actors might fall into the hole.Mudanting is just so lovely..... awwww...

This mudanting made quite an impact when it was staged in Taiwan and it was a full house. It also did attracted alot of youngsters and they even did excerpts in the universities.

Haiz.. I am so jealous.

sooo sweeet...

Last but not least, there is the Chang Sheng Dian 长生殿, by Suzhou KunJu troupe. I have not seen the show before so I can't comment much but I expect it to be good too. Here are the pics.

lovely right? I realised that the new kind of Kunqu likes to use black background instead of the traditonal blue backdrop. I felt that this is a nice change as the costumes and colours stand out more with the black background. The disadvantage is that we wont be able to see the hair of the performers clearly, especially if they are doing tricks with the hair.

I wanted to write something about the new style Pekin Opera too but this entry is too long already and I am tired... zzz.....