![]() Chinese theater does not share the usual Western categories of tragedy and comedy, but instead is divided between "civilian" or "civil" (wen) and "military" (wu). ![]() 19 20Peking Opera The Origins ofPeking Opera. By the end of the century China had deteriorated to a very sorry state indeed in the year 1900 the devastating Boxer Rebellion burst right into the capital Bejing itself, with eight foreign powers forming a united military front to invade China and to expel the ragged Boxer peasant army from the city. The Western imperialist invasions of China began in 1839 and grew more numerous and fiercer as the nineteenth century wore on. By the late years of this great reign, however, decline had begun to set in and accelerated over the next few decades. ![]() The early history of the Peking Opera took place in the China ruled by the Qianlong Emperor, whose reign (1735-96) was among the longest in all of the long history of the country -a reign that witnessed the acme of grandeur and power which so impressed the Europeans of his day. In the twentieth century the Peking Opera has become a kind of national Chinese theater, with many both inside and outside the country associating it with "Chinese opera." Yet in fact at the beginning of the twentieth century it was not performed very commonly outside of Beijing and a rather small number of other centers. As possibly the most highly developed of numerous styles of regional theater which had grown up in China since the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), its development gathered momentum during the succeeding Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the latter a period dominated by the Manchus. Nevertheless, its form and content have their origin in earlier types of Chinese theater, mainly deriving from other parts of China. Peking Opera before the Twentieth Century Colin Mackerras Peking Opera, which takes its name from having been bom and matured in Beijing (currently the common romanization of the name of the city which was known as Peking)-the capital of China now and also at the time when this art form originated -is a highly comprehensive art, integrating music, singing, gesture, costume, make-up, movement, words, acrobatics, and stagecraft in a way unique in the world. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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