Peking Opera · 京剧
From the 1790 Anhui troupes to a UNESCO masterpiece
Peking Opera took shape in Beijing in the late 18th century. In 1790, to celebrate the Qianlong Emperor's eightieth birthday, the Four Great Anhui Troupes (四大徽班) brought their regional singing styles north. Their "Hui tune" (二黄, èrhuáng) proved hugely popular.
Over the following decades, Hui tune merged with "Han tune" (西皮, xīpí) from Hubei to form the píhuáng (皮黄) system that is the musical backbone of Peking Opera. Along the way it borrowed the refined arias of Kunqu and the punch of Qinqiang, all sung in a Beijing-inflected dialect. By the mid-19th century it had become the capital's dominant stage art.
The early 20th century belonged to the Four Famous Dan (四大名旦), led by the great Mei Lanfang, who took Peking Opera to the United States in 1930 and the Soviet Union in 1935, winning admirers such as Stanislavski and Brecht. After a turbulent mid-century interruption, the art revived from the late 1970s onward.
In 2010 UNESCO inscribed Peking Opera on its list of Masterpieces of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognising a tradition that is at once music, theatre, dance and visual art.