“For the young, Peking Opera may be considered an older art form, but that’s only because they’ve never experienced it before.”
On November 11, famous Peking Opera artist Wang Peiyu paid a visit to SUIS Qingpu.
Wang Peiyu is a national first-class actor from the Shanghai Peking Opera company and winner of the Plum Blossom Award and Magnolia Award in opera. She is the leader for the new generation of Peking Opera actors and is known as “Boss Yu” in operatic circles.
Listen! The high-pitched voice in the school’s Theater suddenly rose in air, and Master Wang was saying “Good, good, good,” a three-level rhyme. Coincidentally, this very special visit happened to occur on the ‘Double 11 Festival’, a major shopping festival in China, and Master Wang used this occasion to teach the audience to say “Buy! Buy! Buy!”, which filled the air with laughter. “Nianbai” is a special artistic technique in opera. By reciting “Search for the Orphan and Save the Lonely” sentence by sentence, the audience in the Theater experienced the wonderful charm of Peking Opera.
Although the audience might not have been able to tell which one was Xipi and which one was Erhuang, it didn’t matter. They could still appreciate Master Wang’s singing skills. By singing a sentence from “Silang Visiting Mother,” the audience was led into the heartfelt emotions of the protagonist. We have come to assume that Peking Opera is slow – indeed, for example, reciting “Unspoken Tears” could take more than two minutes, and it’s just a few words! Nonetheless, Peking Opera can also be fast, like, for example, when 70 words can be sung in 18 seconds! How amazing!
Peking Opera performing skills – singing, acting, reciting and acrobatics – express the plot and characters’ thoughts through body language. When our students were given their first Peking Opera experience, they learned to move their hands like clouds; parents and teachers challenged themselves with more difficult actions, like riding a horse. The beauty of Peking Opera lies in the little details, so after experiencing some body language skills, Master Wang showed the audience some facial expressions, such as those for emotions such as ‘shocked’, ‘angry’, ‘joyful’ and a few others.
Wang Peiyu is Meng Xiaodong, a Chinese actress of Peking Opera who specialized in old ‘sheng’ (male roles) in modern times, but is also a representative of Peking Opera culture. At SUIS Qingpu, we are committed to developing students’ all-round abilities, and this includes an appreciation of all forms of art. Thus, art education is irreplaceable. We firmly believe that no matter how you study art, your ideology will be nourished. Let us pay tribute to Wang Peiyu’s perseverance and ingenuity!