2/12/2023 0 Comments Chinese opera costumeAt night, he practiced needlework and slept on the worktable. His initial job was to look after the owner’s two children by day. He was just a little bit taller than the worktables in the workshop. Xu, a cowherd, followed a relative who worked at Jiangshunxin to Shanghai when he was only 13 years old. Xu Shikai, 82, is a master maker of Chinese opera costumes. “Shanghai audiences ‘watch’ Chinese opera, while Beijing audiences ‘listen’ to Chinese opera.” “The bustling road was filled with more than 20 Chinese opera costume workshops in the 1950s,” says Xu Shikai, 82, a master maker of costumes. One of them, called Jiangshunxin, provided tailor-made costumes for the Four Great Dans of Peking Opera - Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Shang Xiaoyun and Xun Huisheng. In the 1930s, most of the workshops relocated to Guangdong Road. They gathered on what is today Sipailou Road near Yuyuan Garden in Huangpu District and opened workshops that mainly focused on the making of Chinese opera costumes. That position was the result of an array of skilled craftsmen, including master Huang Jinrong, moving from Beijing and Suzhou to Shanghai. Shanghai has been a leader in making Chinese opera costumes since the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). For many foreigners, their first contact with Chinese opera is a jolting experience, with its shrill voices, stylized movements, exaggerated make-up, lively music played on traditional Chinese instruments and, of course, exquisite, colorful costumes.
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