The Origin of Nanyang Opera Art

Numerous ancient theaters are also the best proof of the prosperity of Nanyang drama culture. Nanyang ancient stage, also known as the stage among the people, has many temples, which is a performance place for Han people to worship their ancestors, reward their gods and make social fires. In the Yuan Dynasty, there was 1 ancient theater in Xiansheng Temple in Wangdian Township, neixiang county. At the end of Qing Dynasty, there were more than 600 theatres and theaters in Nanyang. There are 23 in Nanyang alone, 58 in zhenping county and 68 in neixiang county. Well-known theaters include the Diaojiao Building of Shanshan Guild Hall in Sheqi, Xiansheng Theater in Xiansheng Temple Village in Wangdian Township in Neixiang, and Chenghuangmiao Theater in Zhenping.

The development of Nanyang Opera can be traced back to the dance and music in Qin and Han Dynasties.

There are many kinds of dances in Nanyang in Han Dynasty, such as encouragement, long-sleeved dancing, feasting, acrobatics, martial arts, and story-telling gladiator dramas. The items described by Zhang Heng in Xijing Fu are: Jiao Jiao, Wu Huo carrying a tripod, worshiping, jumping pills and swords, walking a tightrope, seeking fans in Dulu, playing leopard dance, white tiger drum snake and black dragon blowing stings.

Since the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the custom of feasting on Chen Ji has been formed in the society, and this trend became more intense in the Han Dynasty. Music, dance and hundreds of performances in Nanyang Han Dynasty stone reliefs and brick reliefs are mostly performed at the banquet scene, with guests and friends sitting on one side and excellent people doing wonderful performances on the other side. Female geisha has long sleeves, "stepping on the plate" and "cuju", bending over and spinning, wanting to fly; Male geisha are either naked, upside down, or funny, or "one-man show", "mask", "bull fight" and "tiger fight", and their skills are spectacular. The musical instruments reflected in the picture are drums, drums, cymbals, bells, cymbals, cymbals, flutes, instruments, gongs, cymbals and sheng. The band consists of percussion instruments and orchestral music, with simple instrumental performances, songs and dances and hundreds of operas. No matter what form, drums are indispensable musical instruments and occupy a prominent position on the screen. "Nie Chen" is mainly used to control the rhythm. The composition and accompaniment of this band have continued and influenced the traditional China opera music on the stage today.

Shi Zhuan, a Han painting unearthed in Nanyang, also has a large number of dances popular in the Han Dynasty. In addition to the spirit star dance for sacrifice, martial arts dance and five-element dance in the court, there are solo dances and duet dances characterized by skills and modeling. Among them, the sword drum is the main musical instrument, and two people perform the sword drum. There are "stepping on the drum" with wide sleeves and long sleeves, long-sleeved dance accompanied by singing teams, and "seven-petal dance" with long sleeves and flowing feet. In these dances, the costumes of geisha are often long-sleeved, which is convenient for "the sleeves are long and bent" and increases the aesthetic feeling. "Everything is wrong" says: "Good at dancing with long sleeves, good at money." Sleeves, widely used and stylized in China traditional operas, originated from Nanyang Han Dynasty stone reliefs. Zhang Heng said in "Watching Dance Fu": "Raise the sleeves to the wing surface, and the sound is obvious and Long song." In Bao Zhao's poems, there is also a saying that "seven sets of long sleeves, court to Song Zhong". It can be seen that by the Han Dynasty, the song and dance in Nanyang had developed to a close integration.

Judging from the stone reliefs and brick reliefs in the Han Dynasty, the hundred plays popular in Nanyang in the Han Dynasty are more popular, except Breaking Narrows, Taking Medicine with Flying Sword, Dumping Pot, Six Records, Spitting Fire, Playing with Cars and Walking on Ropes. In Han Dynasty, Nanyang's gladiatorial drama was not only a simple competitive performance or power struggle, but also a relatively simple story, such as the Chiyou drama in which Chiyou fought with the Yellow Emperor, the Huanggong drama in the East China Sea in which warriors fought with tigers, and the bullfighting drama in which Jiaohe River God became a bull.

In terms of artistic expression, many portraits of 100 people representing Chiyou, such as tiger, cow, lion, bear and unicorn, are mostly played by geisha. The "elephant man" in the story of driving the leopard often wears a mask. This is naturally related to the popular Nuo dance and Nuo opera in Jingchu and the "body double face" in the later Tang Dynasty, and directly affects the facial makeup of characters in later operas. In some performance venues, there are wave-like hanging hangers. The position of band accompaniment is relatively fixed, and the performance and accompaniment are also clearly defined, which shows that Nanyang Han Dynasty music and dance drama has gradually integrated many factors such as singing, dancing, mixed accompaniment of various musical instruments, makeup, costumes, props, virtual movements, story content, simple lines and so on, and is evolving in the direction of "performing stories by singing and dancing", marking the development of opera from germination to a new stage.

In addition, judging from the content of the story, there are self-slaughter, wearing robes, Jing Ke stabbing the king of Qin, Zhao's orphan, the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Bole Xiangzi, Fan Kuai driving away the king and stopping driving. These historical stories provide rich content for future opera selections.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the opera activities in Nanyang were quite common, which were manifested in the following aspects: the addition of theaters, such as Jinhua Huoshao Temple Theatre in Nanyang County (690), Yuxian Temple Theatre in Lixian County, Li Dian County (757) and Qingtai Volcano Temple Theatre in Sheqi County (1079). After the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, Yue Fei, a famous anti-gold star, led his troops to take Shimengou, maoji, Tongbai County as a fortress, and repeatedly attacked Xinyang to stop the nomads from going south. Later, Xiang and Deng were stationed to confront the nomads. At this time, the shadow play, which was popular in Bianjing, was also brought to Nanyang with the army, and it was called "Hook and Let Straight", which was called "Tokyo Tune" by Nanyang people and then spread among Nanyang people. There are five or six people in the shadow play class. Because it is light and flexible, the masses love to watch it. By the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 120 shadow plays in Tongbai County alone.

Puppets, also known as puppets, are widely circulated in Nanyang: puppets (hanging wires) and elbow puppets (stick-headed puppets). 198 1 year, two brick-carved puppet shows with sticks were found in the Song tomb in Yunyang, Nanzhao, which provided reliable materials for the study of ancient Nanyang puppet shows.

Since the Qing Dynasty, emerging local operas have flourished all over the country, with unprecedented prosperity, especially in Nanyang. Yuediao, Nanyang Bangzi and Huang Er have a wide influence, and shadow play and puppets are still full of vitality. Qing Palace Opera, Gong Opera, Juan Opera (Gong Opera and Juan Opera have been performed on the same stage for a long time, called Gong Juan Opera), ancient painting opera, Beijing Bangzi opera and Henan opera have been launched one after another, and Quju opera has quickly led the Southeast Asian drama circle since its rise.

Huang Er (Han Opera) of Xianghe School is one of the four major schools of Hubei Han Opera. Along the Tanghe River, Baihe River and Danjiang River, Qing Daoguang and Xianfeng years (182 1- 1862) spread to Nanyang. After the Revolution of 1911, it became one of the three major operas in Nanyang.

With the active activities of traditional Chinese opera, various traditional Chinese opera associations have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. According to rough statistics, there are 168 opera clubs in Nanyang, among which there are more than 30 Yuediao, Nanyang Bangzi 16, more than 60, and there are more than 40 gong show,,, puppet and Beijing Opera Bangzi. From the government, county government, dignitaries to rich squires, and even ordinary people, they are proud of providing drama, which has become a common practice for a while. The scholar Fang of Dafangzhuang in Tanghe and his son Fang Wenhe continued to provide six subjects services for Erhuangwo class (class), which lasted for 33 years from the 24th year of Guangxu (1898) to the 20th year of the Republic of China (193 1). For more than 30 years, Zhang Xiaoben of Deng County has successively set up five-subject Yue Diao classes and Nanyang Bangziwo classes. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Zhang Ruying of Nanyang County founded Huang Er Class, which gained great fame. As for Huagu Opera, Gong Juan Opera and Juan Opera, there are community activities in Nanzhao, Fangcheng, Tanghe and Tongbai. The drama club has trained a group of famous actors with superb skills and eager to show their talents. They enjoy a high reputation among the masses, and there are many proverbs besides the trumpets such as "the sage of drama" (in Nanyang Bangzi), "the master of drama" (the week of being both civil and military) and "the young and old opera fans" (Hou Taixiang and Hua Dan). For example, "Sheng Wa (Nanyang Bangzidan Wang Jiao Chunsheng) shouted and lost eight banners; Men don't go into the ground, women don't cook soup. " "I am willing to give up my father, my mother, and I am unwilling to give up my Snuff (Shao Caiwa); I am willing to give up, I am willing to give up my mother, and I am reluctant to give up Cai Wa's "Three Openings". "

The appearance of famous brands pushed Nanyang's traditional opera activities to the peak. Temple fairs in urban and rural areas have long become a common practice. Whether they are spring prayers and autumn newspapers, they are willing to celebrate their achievements, feast guests and friends, and compete. At the busiest time of the Temple Fair on March 3rd in Shipingpinggu Peak, Tongbai County, there were three or four kinds of dramas and eight kinds of repertoires performed in Taiwan at the same time, with tens of thousands of audiences and great excitement. Mountains are no exception. There is a folk song circulating in Nanzhao: "The big stone ditch is round but not slippery, and the big drama can't afford to sing puppets (puppets), build platforms and cliffs, sit on piers and sit on stones ... You can't talk nonsense about operas, but learn to go to Chenzhou with old bags."

Regardless of the Yuediao class, Huang Er and Bangzi class, in addition to performing in Nanyang, Zhoukou, Xinyang and other towns, and even Hubei and Shaanxi have left their footprints. For example, Sun's class in Xichuan County was called to perform in An, and Empress Dowager Cixi specially presented a yellow jacket; 1923, the "Three Characters and Two Springs" class of Tanghe zhang wan also performed at the Han Theater in Hankou German Concession. There is a wide range of opera activities, and famous artists have made great contributions to the development of Nanyang opera culture.

With the frequent development of opera activities and the rapid development of opera clubs, the construction of performance venues has been highly valued by the government, famous families, wealthy businessmen and villagers. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 600 ancient theaters in Nanyang, which were all over urban and rural areas. As for simple theaters, wooden platforms and earthen platforms, there are countless ones everywhere. It is worth mentioning that the hanging sword building of Shanshan Guild Hall in Sheqi County was built in the first year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty (1796). It has a theater that can accommodate 10,000 people, with more than 500 "private seats" on both sides. With unique design, exquisite craftsmanship, grand scale and magnificent momentum, it is the best-preserved ancient theater in Henan Province and a national key cultural relics protection unit.

During this period, most of the performances were handed down from master to apprentice and from generation to generation. It was not until the Revolution of 1911 that some well-educated opera friends began to use opera as a weapon to create scripts for local operas and carry out propaganda against emperors, officials and seals. For example, Liu Ye rebelled, his wife rebelled, the ghost of a foreign smoker, Cao Ruilian walking in the snow, and so on. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, Li Cong of Tanghe wrote Mulan Joining the Army to Persuade Her Husband to Resist the War of Resistance, and Zhou Jiwei of Nanyang wrote The New Sting Tiger, The Pain of Refugees, The Traitor's Face, etc. , to carry out anti-Japanese propaganda. The creation of these plays has added new contents and features to the history of Nanyang drama.