The Department of Western Opera at the CAD established in 1949, was one of the earliest opera performance programs founded in China's art institutions after the establishment of the PRC. In its early years, the department made significant contributions to the development of China's opera movement through classic productions such as ‘The White-Haired Girl’, ‘Brother and Sister Reclaim the Wasteland’, and ‘The Marriage of Xiao Erhei’. After the Reform and Opening-up, in 1984, the Academy started an opera class under the Department of Acting, which has supplied the country with a large number of opera professionals. In 2012, the Department of Western Opera was officially restored.

The Department now offers a course in Acting (for Opera). It is the mission of the Department to train the students to be perfect singers in the first place and skillful actors as well for operas, who should be able to independently and accurately represent the image of a character in a play. Based on the CAD’s goal to build itself to be a world-class art institute with distinctive characteristics, the Department constantly hires teachers with rich practical experience in art and professional knowledge in opera. Now the Department boasts a strong faculty team that consists of young and middle-aged professionals graduated from top art institutes in China and abroad. There are 21 faculty members in the Department, including 19 Chinese teachers, 1 specially-appointed foreign professor, and 1 secretary in charge of teaching affairs.

There are 3 teaching and research sections in the Department respectively for vocal music, piano, and general education. More than 20 undergraduate professional modules are taught, including: 1. the category of vocal music (Vocal Music, Ensemble, Chorus, 3 language modules in German, Italian, and French, and Music Appreciation); 2. the category of piano and basic music theory (Piano Accompaniment, Piano as Minor, Music Theory, Solfeggio, Harmony, Musical Form Analysis, History of Chinese, and Foreign Music); and 3. the category of performance (Acting, Speech, Physique, Makeup, and Opera Rehearsal). The Department are offering and improving its modules for postgraduates, including Vocal Music, Piano Accompaniment, Acting, Advanced Sight-Singing, Opera Theory, Opera Rehearsal and other professional modules. In recent years, the Department has produced a number of opera repertoires. Specifically, foreign operas include ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, ‘La Finta Giardiniera’, ‘Classics of Western Opera’, ‘The Magic Flute’, ‘La Traviata’ and ‘Die lustige Witwe’; and Chinese original operas include ‘The Schoolmistresses in the Mountain Village’, ‘Visitors On The Icy Mountain’, and ‘The Marriage of Xiao Erhei’.

We work to train our students to master solid and comprehensive skills in opera singing and acting, and to be able to independently create images for opera stage. They are expected to, after finishing their basic studies (of Western classic operas, to name one subject), be capable of representing Chinese opera stories and singing Chinese opera songs. We follow the laws of opera creation, and continuously improve the quality of opera production and performance. Based on the broader definition of ‘drama’, we will build on opera culture to construct a unique and distinctive system for opera education for cultivating high-level, advanced, top-notch and all-round professionals for the party and the country.