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Opera traditions carry on the tale of China
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WHEN he dons his flowing robes and vivid makeup, Wu Yunhong is transformed from a laborer who toils on Chinese mountains under a beating sun into an evil general commanding an army of warriors.
Wu was raised in the Jinyuan Opera Company, co-founded by his grandfather in 1984. He started performing when he was only eight and is the third generation to carry on the tradition — but he may be the last.
With crowds aging and performers dying off, the traditional Sichuan style of opera performed around the southwestern city of Chongqing is threatened with extinction.
Some traditional Chinese opera styles such as Peking and Canton have been elevated to “national treasure” status by the government, winning millions in funding. But others are left to wither on the stage.
“Sometimes the only young people at the performances are my wife and children when they travel with us,” says Wu, 26.
He and his fellow players receive no government funding, and between shows the actors must still tend their fields, growing corn and rice in a mountainous area where temperatures can easily reach 42 degrees Celsius in summer.
“We don’t get any support from the government, all of our fees come from the farmers who pool their money together for a performance,” says troupe member Lyu Guiying.
“We make a little extra money performing, but we can never get rich performing.”
The Beijing style of opera, mostly known as Peking Opera in the English-speaking world, was popularized under the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
It had ample support from the court and spread because it was sung in a language widely understood across China, while regional varieties such as Cantonese, Shanghainese and Sichuanese operas stuck to their own dialects and songs.
The government remained keen on Peking Opera after 1949, and every province formed its own Peking Opera troupe, even at the expense of local varieties.
A crippling blow came with the “cultural revolution” (1966-76), when a campaign was launched to cleanse the arts. All plays, films, operas, ballets and music considered “feudalistic and bourgeois” were banned. Only eight “model plays” were allowed.
It wasn’t until the 1980s before private theater companies began to form again in China.
For a short time they flourished, but have since had to compete with new forms of entertainment that came with China’s economic boom.
“Every society has a desire to preserve its own folk cultures, however in China you have to add the political power,” says Ruru Li, a professor of Chinese theater studies at the University of Leeds.
“First there was the ‘cultural revolution’ and now there’s state investment, but it doesn’t include the majority of opera styles,” she notes.
Without official support, niche styles are disappearing at a steady drum beat.
“In the 1960s, there were more than 300 varieties of Chinese opera, today there are about 200,” Li says. “In 10 years’ time, maybe there will only be 100 varieties left.”
Those who still perform them have had to contend with shrinking audiences and a lack of new fans, as many young people shun farming and leave China’s countryside to look for better-paying jobs in the cities.
“I don’t want my son to grow up learning opera like I did, he needs to go to school, hopefully he can go to university,” says Wu. “He needs to learn to be cultured, not in opera, but the culture of books, or else he will just be a poor peasant like me.”
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