Why Sichuan opera is worth a whole day
Most visitors in Chengdu see it in the last ninety minutes of an evening, after dinner, in a hall built for tourists. It is a genuine art form with a three-hundred-year history, five separate vocal traditions inside it and a set of techniques that exist nowhere else in Chinese theatre, and it survives on the strength of audiences who buy a cup of tea and stay for the afternoon. That is the version of it this day is built on.
What it actually is
Sichuan opera is not one style of music. It is five - a high-pitched choral tradition, the Kunqu melodies, the plucked-string and bowed-string styles, a clapper-operated tune, and a lantern opera that is native to Sichuan rather than imported - and every one of them except the last arrived from another province between the late Ming and the middle of the Qing. It acquired its present shape in the eighteenth century, when local lantern theatre absorbed them all, and it has been sung in the Sichuan dialect ever since. In 2006 it was placed on the first national list of intangible cultural heritage.
Two things make it unlike the theatre you may know. First, the chorus: in the high-pitched tradition the singing is answered by a group offstage and on, in leading, joining, doubling and echoing roles, so that the emotional line is carried by several voices at once rather than by one. Second, the physical technique - face-changing, fire-spitting and the long-water-sleeve work are the famous three, and face-changing is the one that cannot be explained. A performer changes from one mask to another in the fraction of a second it takes to turn, and the mechanics are a trade secret held within families and companies.
Afternoon - the teahouse stage
We begin in an old teahouse theatre, the kind where the seating is a bamboo chair, the ticket is roughly the price of a pot of tea and the audience talks through the performance. Your guide explains the five roles - the refined young man, the female lead, the bearded older man, the painted-face general and the clown, who is the most demanding of them all - and what each gesture is announcing. Costume and make-up are covered in the same session, including how a painted face is built up and read.
Backstage
Before the evening performance we go behind the stage, which is the part of the day that guests consistently rate highest. You will see the band's percussion set-up, where the drummer is in effect the conductor of the whole performance and leads the chorus himself; the racks of embroidered costume, some of it decades old; and the make-up tables, where a face is put on in layers. Where the company is willing, a performer will demonstrate the change at very close range - which is the only way to understand how completely the eye is defeated by it.
Evening - a full performance
The day finishes with a full-length performance rather than a variety show: a play, or an evening of scenes chosen for a first-time audience, with the high-pitched choral singing answered by the chorus and at least one sequence of face-changing in context rather than as a display. Afterwards we walk you back, and if you want to know what happened in the parts you missed, your guide will go through the plot with you over a last cup of tea.
A note on the programme
Theatre schedules in Chengdu change with the season and with touring, so we confirm the house and the title with you when your date is fixed rather than promising a particular production in writing. Ticket classes run from the ordinary seats at the front of the stalls to VIP seating, and the price is quoted separately once we have confirmed the performance.
Meals
Dinner
Accommodation
Day programme - no hotel night included.
