Old-school presentation
Show promises to be feast for fans of ancient art.
With delicate makeup, exquisite costumes and headwear, four young Peking Opera actresses — Li Li, Jiang Xiaoyue, Yang Xiaoyang and Yin Chanjuan — showcase their talents playing four classic Peking Opera female roles at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts in Beijing, offering a glimpse of a show at Beijing’s Tianqiao Performing Arts Center slated for May 6.
Among the audience is Zhang Huoding, one of the country’s best known Peking Opera stars, who has been teaching the four female students for about a year.
During her long career, the 47-year-old Zhang has interpreted those four classic roles, including that Bai Suzhen from The Legend of
White Snake and Zhu Yingtai from the Butterfly Lovers.
Speaking about the actresses, Zhang says: “They are so diligent and devoted to this art form. I am glad to see that they have taken their performance to another level over the past year, which is not easy.
“It takes solitude and years of hard training to learn Peking Opera. You have to concentrate,” she adds.
Zhang, a former actress from the China National Peking Opera Company, has performed in sellout shows across the country, including a solo show at the Great Hall of the People in 2007.
Now, she teaches at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, one of the top academies of traditional Chinese opera, especially the 200-year-old Peking Opera, which is known as jingju in Chinese. And, over the past 10 years, since she became a mother, she has spent much of her time with her students at the school.
In 2016, the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts launched a project which enabled Zhang to mentor young female Peking Opera students.
So far, about 10 young female Peking Opera actresses have worked with Zhang.
One of Zhang’s students, Li Li, who will perform the role Princess Tiejing from the classic Peking Opera Yang Silang Visits His Mother in the show, says of Zhang: “Although she rarely appears in public, she is like a pop star and many of her fans are young people like us.”
The 29-year-old Li started her Peking Opera training in her hometown of Tianjin at the age of 7, before moving on to graduate with a master’s degree from the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts.
For Li, who now works with the Beijing Peking Opera Theater, the years before she studied under Zhang were a struggle, and she even considered quitting her job as a
jingju actress.
Then, in 2014, Li watched a performance by Zhang at Beijing’s Chang’an Grand Theater. The long standing ovation and enthusiastic response Zhang received from her fans restored Li’s faith in the art.
Explaining how Zhang influenced her, Li says: “I used to be restless but now I am very calm. What touches me is not only her solid technique onstage, but also her attitude toward this old art.”
The upcoming show is part of the 18th Meet in Beijing Arts Festival, one of the capital’s biggest cultural events.
Separately, on June 16 and 17, more of Zhang’s students will perform shows at the Chang’an Grand Theater.
Paying tribute to Zhang, Ba Tu, the president of the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, says: “She left the stage at the peak of her career and devoted herself to teaching the younger generation. And our goal is to keep the tradition alive while training a new generation of Peking Opera performers.”
Zhang, who was born in Baicheng, a city in Northeast China’s Jilin province, was first exposed to the stage when her father, a veteran performer of Pingju Opera, which is popular in northern China, began to teach her about the art form when she was 9 years old.
And she started to learn about Peking Opera when she heard pieces from the opera on cassettes brought to her by her elder brother Zhang Huoqian, who was then studying the art form in Jilin.
At the age of 10, Zhang Huoding auditioned for a Peking Opera training school but failed. And by the time she was 15, she had failed four annual auditions. However, she did not give up and her father took her to Beijing to study Peking Opera with the performer Wang Lanxiang.
By the age of 16, Zhang was enrolled to study Peking Opera at an art school in Tianjin.
Then, before her graduation, she decided to devote herself to the Cheng School of Peking Opera, a performing style founded by Cheng Yanqiu (1904-58), one of the great Peking Opera masters of the 20th century. Like famous Peking Opera star Mei Lanfang (1894-1961), Cheng mastered the techniques of playing female roles, which is called nandan.
The Cheng School is known for interpreting tragic female roles with frequent changes in rhythm.
In 2015, Zhang Huoding made her debut in the United States, and caused a sensation by performing two famous Peking Opera pieces, The Legend of the White Snake and The Jewelry Pouch, at the Lincoln Center in New York.
At that time, Zhang Huoding’s US debut was compared by the media to a performance by Mei Lanfang, who appeared in New York in 1930.
Speaking about that performance, Wang Xiuqin, the general manager of the China Performing Arts Agency, which organized the show, says: “I can still recall the devoted fans at the venue welcoming her, since she rarely performs in public now,”
In 2016, Zhang Huoding performed The Legend of the White
Snake, marking the end of the Meet in Beijing Arts Festival for that year.