Aesthetic Modernity Of Peking Opera In The Early 20th Century

After the opening of Shanghai port, foreigners brought western culture, it has a great influence for China, the western industrial civilization in shanghai change the society. Beijing absorbs foreign thoughts less compared with Shanghai relatively. Shanghai as a societal open city is far from Beijing. Different schools of opera vary greatly as they came into being in different cultures. The Peking Opera was spread to Shanghai after its popularization in Beijing, and the unique Shanghai culture gave birth to the Shanghai Opera style which is quite different from the Peking style in both performance forms and content. As the physical embodiment of opera that brings together actors, audiences and the play, theater is indispensable to opera. The contrasting features of traditional theater and the new theater reflect the differences between the Peking Opera and the Shanghai Opera in terms of art forms, cultural connotations and aesthetic patterns. Under the influence of the modern aesthetic theories, the Shanghai “New Theater” made it possible for the Shanghai Opera to display its unique features and push its development to a new level. The establishment of the “New Theater” can also be seen as a landmark of the integration of the Eastern and Western cultures. Starting from the “New Theater”, this dissertation focuses on the aesthetic transformation and the modern features of the Shanghai Opera style.