Peking Opera - An Inside Review 

Reported by James Li 5/16/2015

Peking Opera is an UNESCO Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity of China. However, there are not many formal performances of the Peking Opera in Austin. On May 16, 2015, Austin Peking Opera Club and the Houston Peking Opera Club brought an amazing Peking Opera performance to the Asian American Resource Center. Around 300 people attended the performance. 

Xinzhi Yao, the chairman of the Houston Peking Opera Club and director of the performance, accepted my interview. I’m mostly interested in the face painting in the performance so I asked him how they paint them. Mr. Yao explained, “The face on the flyer is the face of Zhang Fei, a brave fighter in Chinese history. ” He also pointed out, “Each person in Peking Opera has a specific face color and design.” He told me that Peking Opera is a performance art that incorporates singing, reciting, acting, and acrobatics. 

Mr. Yao also told me that many instruments are used to make up the Peking Opera. There were string instruments like the Jing Hu, the Er Hu, the Moon Harp, the Ruan, and last but not least, the Samisen. The percussion instruments are the drum, the big gong, cymbals, and the small gong.  


They performed four selected scenes. The first on one was Into the Palace the Second Time. The others are Lady Mu the Marshal, Farewell My Concubine, and Mother-son Reunion. To help audience understand the singing, there are more than two hundred slides with both English and Chinese script in sync with the performance. The show was one of the best shows that I have ever seen.

 If you are interested in the Peking Opera, contact the Austin Club through Frank Yang, (512)791-4114.