The magical charm of Chinese opera is closely related to the makeup of opera, among which the stage makeup of The Beijing-Kunming opera genre is even more exquisite.
With the increasing frequency of opera appearances and cross-border cooperation in film and television dramas, more and more young people have begun to try opera makeup, punch in opera photos, and contact opera culture. Xiqu makeup has a unique "out of the circle" charm.
Recently, Shanghai Oriental Art Center invited Opera makeup artist Sanbao to be a guest in the live broadcast room to share Xiqu makeup.
He is the royal makeup artist of "Prince of Kunqu" Zhang Jun, and also designed peking opera makeup for Shang Xiaorui, played by actor Yin Zheng, in the popular TV series "Sideburns Are Not Begonia Red". In 17 years in the industry, he has made more than 6,000 faces for opera actors and film and television actors.
What are the doorways and what are the exquisite ones in the opera makeup? Follow his behind-the-scenes stories and get a closer look at the beauty of traditional Chinese opera.
Sambo
【Readme】
I didn't do this by chance, mainly for family reasons. My grandfather was one of the first opera actors, and used to sit in the science department (study drama in the science class). Male Dan's voice may have a problem around the age of 40, the so-called "second inverted warehouse", and then his voice was gone, so he changed his makeup.
Grandpa can be said to be my enlightened teacher. I grew up living with my grandfather, playing in the background, hearing about it, and developing a very strong interest in opera.
I officially entered the industry around 2005 and studied with the teachers of the Shanghai Peking Opera House and the Shanghai Theater Academy for about 4 years, devoting myself to the makeup of opera. For me, it's not a job, it's a hobby and hobby.
The opera makeup looks very simple, in fact, there are many contents, a very ordinary makeup surface involves folklore, as well as traditional culture (including Chinese painting, dance), but also add character personality, pay attention to it or quite a lot.
Over the past 17 years, I have estimated that I have probably made more than 6,000 faces and come into contact with many people.
People who do this business have a good mentality, no matter who he is, whether he is a star, an actor, or a student of our school (Shanghai Theater Academy, Shanghai Opera School), or even a ticket holder, we must show a normal heart and be worthy of professional ethics. We are not only wearing makeup, but also taking the face with a point, carrying forward and promoting the national essence.
People who are not in our industry often have a lot of questions, why is it so? While answering the questions, the first enriched myself and broadened my knowledge, and the second will invisibly promote traditional art.
I once had such a friend, he looked for me to finish makeup very happy, did not expect this makeup so complicated, there are so much exquisite! That night, he bought a ticket to the theater, invited me to a piece, and asked me to help him explain. I am very happy, at least to dedicate a little to traditional art.
Three treasures work photos
Many friends asked whether there was any difference between Peking opera makeup and Kunqu makeup, including Huai opera, Yue opera, Xiang opera and so on.
Yue opera has a different path and a unique system, borrowing from traditional Chinese female paintings, so its choreography and makeup are more realistic. And Peking Opera, Kunqu Opera, Huai Opera, Xiang Opera, Commentary, Qin Cavity, etc., adhering to the most traditional makeup and stage characteristics, very heavy, makeup is very thick, the costume is very freehand.
Friends who like Peking Opera and Kunqu opera will ask, are these two makeup different? I want to tell you that Jingkun is not divided into families, they are brother dramas, there is no difference in makeup, including the stage system, the habit of wearing costumes are the same.
In the school, the makeup teachers and costume systems of the Peking Opera class and the Kunqu class are all the same set of teams, the aesthetics are also the same, and the requirements of the stage and the rules of the stage are the same.
Why are some light and some thick, some have thin eyebrows and thick eyebrows? The difference is in the lighting of the stage and the size of the stage. The stage lights up a little and the makeup will be adjusted. The stage will also be adjusted from a 2,000-seat theater to a small theater with 300 people, to a black box and immersive performances that are closer together. In addition, when shooting movies and TV series, we also adjust the makeup.
The makeup style of each troupe will be slightly different, and the aesthetic habits, makeup habits, and wearing habits of each actor will also be different, and we will communicate with the actors to make the makeup more suitable for the characters, in line with the actors' performance habits, and help the performance.
Many friends will say that makeup should look good, how to evaluate good looks?
Some people think that the flower face is not good-looking, it is not like this. The flower face is a rough beauty. Ugly behavior is a witty, lovely beauty. Wearing silver bubbles in green clothes is an atmospheric and elegant beauty. The noble concubine wearing a phoenix crown is a graceful and luxurious beauty. The characters in each category have different personalities of beauty, and a hundred flowers bloom.
Opera comes from life. Hua Face is a grumpy or bold character in life, we show it through exaggerated faces; Qingyi is a female character, we must make her beautiful; clowns we will make cute and funny... There are such characters in life, we refine them, abstract them, higher than life, the audience looks at it, this person looks so strange, this person is fierce, this person is so cute, the character has it.
From left to right: dot silk head face, rhinestone head face, silver head face
From left to right: sand chrysanthemum, camellia, bluebell, caryophyll
What is the difference between opera makeup and modern makeup?
Modern makeup is basically a system with opera makeup, which is mainly flat and does not pay much attention to three-dimensionality.
Three-dimensional, bone feeling, this is the Western aesthetic. China is talking about the mouth containing Zhu Dan, willow eyebrow phoenix eyes, round as beauty, eyebrows round, thin, eyes are also phoenix eyes, mouth small... This has been the case for thousands of years, which is a traditional aesthetic of Chinese, more subtle, more elegant.
What is the difference between the tools of opera makeup and modern makeup?
There are very few colors used in traditional opera makeup, that is, flesh color, red, and black. The color is very simple, but the difficulty is that it is too simple, just like traditional Chinese instruments have three strings, but must come out with a variety of sounds.
Orientals think of white as beauty, so the background color is basically meat pink oil paint, which will be very bright on the stage. The costumes of Xiqu are very colorful, and the headdresses are also shiny, so the skin must be fairer to compete with the gorgeous costumes and gorgeous headdresses.
Also, we have wet rouge, a bit like coral red, pink with orange in it. This is a red oil paint, used for foundationing. A circle around the actor's eyes is red, that is, a wet rouge base, after the bottom is set, and then add dry powder rouge, so that the color will seep out from the inside. After fixing the makeup, we have to use black oil paint to hook the eye sockets.
There are also some other colors of oil paint that are used for character makeup. Maybe you haven't seen these strange things at all, it doesn't look like cosmetics, like paint boxes, in fact, opera makeup is the same as Chinese painting.
Actors will move and sweat after a performance, so the coloring power of color should be strong and the durability should be strong. Opera makeup is very strange, can not be wrong, once wrong, you have to wash your face and start over.
Some people also asked, many people look different, how can they all look so good in the end? This is where opera makeup is so powerful that you can change the shape of your face by patching it! Life makeup mainly changes the shape of the face through the contrast between light and dark such as shadows.
People with narrow faces, the film is pasted backwards; people with wide faces, the film is pasted forward; people with long faces can paste the film higher; people with short faces can paste the film down... Through the film, as well as the seven small bends pasted on the forehead, the shape of the actor's face is adjusted, and the direction of the most perfect is as close as possible.
Some characters are more scathing and may be treated in special ways. For example, Wang Xifeng, who has a tricky personality, we will paste a crooked peach, and the film will be asymmetrical and appear more spicy.
The makeup of the opera actors is so thick, like a mask, how can the audience feel that the face is not fake, not like a shell? It is also through the patch that the makeup of the face and the hair of the head are connected to achieve the effect of flowing water and poetry. This is the best makeup method that the ancestors have been practicing and studying for many years.
Sanbao and Yin Zheng work photo
Makeup is like this, follow the industry, not with the characters. Born of the end of the ugly, how to transform, how to be, has nothing to do with specific people. For example, the faces of Wang Baojun and Yang Guifei, we are all beautiful, because they all belong to the Qingyi industry.
How to distinguish characters? clothing. Red is rarely used, only for marriage, birthdays, and happy events at home. White is generally a funeral, and there are some people who are particularly clean and upright, and they will also use white, but they must be embroidered. Black, green, royal blue, generally flower face more used. The five colors, such as red, black, white, etc., are generally used more by the main actors, because the weight is heavier. The next five colors, like lake color, pink, etc., are generally used more by non-starring actors, which we call "two roads".
The head (headdress) is also related to the personality of the character, and when you see the head face, you know what kind of personality this person is.
The dotted silk head noodles are made of silk, generally worn by noblewomen, and the personality is more dignified; the rhinestone head noodles, also called bright head faces, shiny crystals, are generally worn by little girls with lively and cheerful personalities, small families and jasper; silver head noodles, made of silver, plain, atmospheric, clean, generally worn by poor people, such as Wang Baojun.
There are also silk flowers, sand chrysanthemums, camellias, bluebells, caryophylls... The 87th edition of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is basically made of opera flowers, very beautiful, Wang Xifeng loves to wear sand chrysanthemums the most. I have a lot of silk flowers from the fifties. These headdresses should be moisture-proof, and some silver-plated areas will oxidize.
Practice makeup, practice on your own face, try to change as many people as possible. When I first started putting on makeup, I practiced until two or three o'clock every night, and I practiced against myself. Any art that wants to do well requires very hard work.
I am left-handed, both hands will be transformed, makeup for myself is the left hand, makeup for others is the right hand, the effect is not the same, because the two hands feel different. When time was particularly tight, we sat face to face with the actors, as if painting, with pens in both hands, very fast. You have to practice. The person who learns to draw must have both hands facing the drawing board. Therefore, the makeup of opera is similar to that of Chinese painting.
I also have students in Thailand and Japan, and I find that the oriental countries are beautiful in white.
Kong opera is the national drama of Thailand. In 2017, I went to Thailand to communicate and found that makeup methods are the same, and cosmetics are the same. They also do traction, but also wrap their heads, and lift their eyebrows with water yarn, so that people are very energetic and look brighter. So are we.
In 2014 I exchanged at a museum in Japan. They put on Kabuki makeup, I put on Peking opera makeup, they also do traction, they also use headbands, they also use oil paint, and even use the same brand as us. I think it's quite interesting, the culture is really connected.
Yin Zheng plays Shang Xiaorui and Yang Guifei
Yin Zheng plays Shang Xiaorui, a small phoenix fairy shape
When the TV series "Sideburns Are Not Begonia Red" was filmed, I followed for about half a year and was the main makeup artist of Yin Zheng (as Shang Xiaorui).
Yin Zheng is very interesting, why do I like him so much? He was very dedicated, and he had a reverence for opera.
Yin Zheng is a man after all, and his makeup must be very thick to look like a woman. The patch time will definitely be uncomfortable, the hanging eyebrows will be very tight, may be lack of oxygen, I said to loosen you up a little, or steal a little lazy, but Yin Zheng said: Teacher, how to do it, you don't have to hurt me, I can endure, I must ensure the quality of shooting.
I was particularly impressed. Opera actors are like this all year round, know the problem, and can adapt. As a film and television actor, he was first exposed to opera, and his head and face were wrapped in heavy makeup, and after wrapping up, the whole person was ignorant. Filming takes more than ten hours and cannot remove makeup, because once you remove makeup, you have to start over. The shooting scene is particularly cold, and can not let him wear a special number of clothes, the male block is relatively large, need to wear very thin, what to do? Only overcome.
Yin Zheng's facial lines are not very soft. His brow humerus and nose line are very hard, so when he melts his eyebrows, he will be more curved, not too straight, and soften the hard lines of the brow humerus; the eyes are as rounded as possible, don't be so slender; the lips are also very round, like Korean lips, two semicircles above, one semicircle below... Through these means, his face is softer.
Bai Bing (as Jiang Mengping) looks very beautiful, and I only spent half an hour. Some people look beautiful, not necessarily beautiful, some people are not good-looking, but they are beautiful. White ice looks beautiful and looks good when it comes out.
Tan Kenji (as Chen Shuxiang) looks very pretty, but not very well-behaved, and his face is too three-dimensional. In fact, opera makeup, the face is plain and flat, not too three-dimensional, too modern, and it looks very good.
I'm going to make a face for 50 minutes to an hour now, plus half an hour for combing my hair, about an hour and a half.
The makeup of this drama is not the same as it is now. Because the story is set in 1937, we have to imitate the opera makeup method of the time, go through a large number of old photos, and copy them into the TV series, including hair accessories and headdresses.
The crew was very attentive and spent a lot of money. Light opera costumes, Yin Zheng probably has more than twenty sets, plus other people's costumes, the costume fee is about 1 million yuan. A piece of clothing tens of thousands, pure handmade, you can imagine how high the quality of the process.
What I feel most deeply is that everyone takes opera as the center and does things with a very respectful and reverential attitude. From the stage, props, costumes to the actors, everyone has worked hard, so it is not bad.
Zhang Jun plays Zhang Ruoxuan, black veil shaped by the Shanghai Grand Theatre courtesy of the Shanghai Grand Theatre
Tan Kenji plays Chen Sewing Xiang, a white gauze shape
Zhang Jun and I have also cooperated for many years, and the new Kunqu opera "Spring River Flower Moon Night" starring him has been performing regularly, and the scene is full.
"Spring River Flower Moon Night" is a famous passage by the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxuan. Screenwriter Luo Zhou used this as a source of inspiration to create a Kunqu opera of the same name, telling a story that has gone through 50 years, crossed the three realms of human ghosts and immortals, and developed from love and love, and then transcended life and death. It's poignant, it's romantic, it's extremely idealistic.
Zhang Ruoxuan has several scenes in which he wears a black veil. Why the black veil? The black veil represents the soul on the opera stage. Zhang Ruoxu died at the age of 27, died for love, lived for love, entered the mansion with his soul, and then returned to the Yang Realm to see his lover Xin Yi.
Why is the heroine called Xinyi? Xinyi is purple magnolia, light sex, elegant. In the metaphor of flowers, Xin Yi is like a purple magnolia, beautiful, clean, and very cold, and is a cold beauty. She had a crush on Zhang Ruoxuan, but she was silent. The medicinal value of Xin Yi is sexual flatness, so it is Zhang Ruoxu's love medicine... The screenwriter's mind is quite funny, you know that watching the drama again, you will find it very interesting.
In "Sideburns Are Not Begonia Red", Chen Shuxiang fights with Shang Xiaorui in the ring, plays Yan Boxi, and wears a white veil. That scene is called "Soul Road", the soul walks on the road, and the bottom walks the ghost step, just like floating. In the Kunqu opera "Peony Pavilion", Du Liniang is also wearing a white veil.
It is possible to wear a white veil or a black veil. As long as you wear a veil, it is basically a ghost. Black veil is the standard. The white veil will be fresher, representing the ghost. Generally men are black veils, women will use a little pink, white with powder, with a little sequin, but also with flower balls, like "Li Huiniang" this kind of drama with a large flower ball.
As soon as the yarn came out, it was very ethereal. The whole person looks like it will "atomize", coupled with ghost steps, basically can not see the upside down of the feet, like sneaking forward with pulley thorns, like a soul flying around.
There is also a thread tail (the black slender rope behind danjiao's head, representing the hair), (acting ghost play) does not wear a real thread tail, but wears a rectangular black veil, pinned behind the head with a card, so that the actor will not be chaotic when lying in the clouds, turning in circles, and turning over, and when walking, the black veil can float up, more like a ghost.
Ghosts generally wear a rhinestone face, shiny, plus yarn, more like a soul under the illumination of the light, more ethereal, more illusory.
The lighting on the stage is also exquisite. When good people die, it is yellow light. You see Lin Daiyu in yue opera, finally burned the manuscript to break the infatuation, she left, snapped, yellow light hit down, representing her ascension to immortality. When the bad guy dies it's blue light, which means hell. Hell is full of blue light and green light.