Origin

Sichan opera is popular in Sichan province, and some area of Yunan province and Guizhou province. Some opera, like Kun aria, Gao aria, Huqin ara( Beijing opera), Tan opera, which came from the other provinces ,and showdown play, Sichan local art, played individually in Sichan. Since Qianlong period( 1736-1795), because these five operas often played together, the common style opera came into being. So it was called Sichan opera.

Genre

Because of the different places and teachers, Sichan opera came into some genres gradually. Some genres called by name of actors, such as Danhanghuan, Sanxingfu, Caojunchen. Some genres called by area which are West Sichan, Ziyanghe, North Sichan, East Sichan.

Specialty

Sichan opera arts has daily life scene as basement and form into prefect act process. The play has high literature value. The play is living and humorous which loved by people very much. The actors have created some stunts, such as holding in the palm, facing off, getting through the fire ring, and hiding knives. All are wonderful.Facing off is a unique skill of the opera, and grasped only by few people.Facing off is the masterpiece and essence of the present Sichuan opera, which has been widely publicized and known. As the essence of the Sichuan opera, even you have a close watch before the actor; you still can not find Know-how.

Face off or face change in English, is the one of the artistry of the stagecraft, which reflects the minds and sentiments of the stage performers in a romantic way. Generally, the art of face off has three ways:

The first-Mo Nian ( ' Mo ' is a verb); the actors or actresses first paint the paints on certain parts of their face, when they need to change the upper part of the face, they just need to pain the paints on their forehead or eyebrows, if they want to change the lower part of the face, they paint on their cheek or nose.

The second-Chui Nian ( ' Chui ' is also a verb): this act art is limited to use powder paints, such as golden powder, blanc powder ,silver powder and so on. when needed, the powder will be put in tiny boxes which will be hid in somewhere on the stage, when stage performing needs to do face change, the actors or actresses will do lowering action of their body, then blowing into the box which is needed on that time, the powder will sent onto the face ,the color of the face changed.

The third-Che Nian ( ' Chui ' is a verb): Compared to the first two, this art is much more complicated. they actor or actress need to pain faces(we mean Face masks) on air-thin silk or drocade, and then cut them, tie a tiny stripe onto them one by one, at the last step, atach them on their face, hide the tiny ropes on a secret place of their acting robe, with the going on of the performance, they take off the faces one by one or put them back to their face one by one.