Wow, just Wow!
Just back from Warrior Women of Yang at Sadler’s Wells.
Peking Opera (curiously not Beijing?) is an acquired taste, but if you want to start to acquire it, the China National Peking Opera Company are going to offer as good an introduction as any (well better than most).
Minimalist it ain’t. Large cast, amazing and lurid costumes, immensely stylised (and I know that I don’t know the significance of nine tenths or more of the gestures – I’ve been to a Kathakali seminar, drawing on similar sorts of cultural gesture significance), and with some astounding balletic/ gymnastic displays - this is certainly theatre, but not as I know it, though in some ways I suspect it might be as an 18th century theatre goer might (backflips notwithstanding).
There is something pleasantly old fashioned in having scenes and scenery, clear narrative thread, stock characters. And the singing and dancing, if novel to me (the Peking Opera singing style, and tone, is very foreign to my ears) was clearly of the highest standard, if based on the regular outbreaks of applause from a predominantly Chinese audience.
Would I go to another? – if of this quality, you bet.
I know I am getting far less from it than an aficionado, but it was still a good evening’s entertainment.