īeijing opera exalted traditional Confucian values while transmitting traditional Chinese legends and folktales. After the communist victory in the Chinese civil war (1949), opera also constituted a pillar of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist politics in Taiwan where the Ministry of Defense subsidized the art until 1995. Today, it is part of the national culture promoted by the China National Peking Opera Company, founded in 1955. Peking or Beijing Opera developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century out of older forms of musical theater from other regions of China.

Lycée students are familiar with European and American operas, but less so with the Chinese opera.

In the process, students will better grasp the importance of this art form in both Chinese and Western civilization. My research suggests that the art form of opera provides a transdisciplinary means of learning Chinese cultural history and the Mandarin language. As a historian and head of the arts department, I have been exploring this possibility in part because the French Ministry of National Education has introduced an important new chapter on Chinese history since 1919 in the Terminale (Y12) curriculum. One avenue for language learning is traced by the arts, and opera in particular.

Language occupies a province in the realm of culture therefore, language instruction can be successfully facilitated through cultural vehicles.

History of chinese opera