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Opera Stage at Fixing-Peace County Village (Ding'an cun xitai 定安縣村戲台)

From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions (FROGBEAR Project)

The opera stage building (Image 01) outside of what was once the southern gate of the walled village of Fixing-Peace County (Ding’an xian 定安縣), in Hebei Province 河北, China; why the village has this name, or what temple originally faced the stage, are not known. The stage has a relatively standard mural for this area, albeit unusually well-preserved. The two side walls of the front-stage area have trompe-l’œil, optical illusion images of folding screens (Image 03, Image 17, Image 19. The wooden background of the stage has small painted panels set over the doors showing opera scenes (Image 20 to Image 26). A tiger and an unidentified mythological beast appear on the east and west side-walls of the backstage (Image 04, Image 16). A scene of Qilin gazing at the moon (Qilin wang yue 麒麟望月) appears on central (south) wall of the backstage area (Image 07). The entire backstage area and parts of the front-stage walls are covered in rich layers of performers’ graffiti, dating from the late Qing 清 (1644-1911) and Republican 中華民國 (1912-1949) periods (Images: 05, 06, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18). There are two notable drawings recording performances by the “Literary Yu County Troupe” (Wen-Yu ban 文蔚班), an opera group that seems to have been especially active in the remote eastern villages of Yu County 蔚縣 during 1880s and 1890s, and which is attested at several other sites in the area. The rafters display sense from martial operas in monochrome ink-paintings (Images: 27 to 34).

Hebei Sheng, China); Yu Xian (Hebei Sheng, China); 40.034886; 114.812148

chi

North China Mural Survey

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0438430

Non UBC

Graduate

DSpace