Characteristics of Cantonese Opera

It is one of the local opera genres in Guangdong Province, and is also a very influential genre in the south of China. It is also a very influential opera in the south of China. Since it was produced in Guangdong, it is called Cantonese opera. It first emerged in the area of Guangzhou and Foshan, and is now mainly popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Since many overseas Chinese are of Cantonese descent, Cantonese opera is often performed in areas where overseas Chinese reside. Cantonese Opera is mainly sung with clappers and two reeds, while retaining the Kunshan accent, Goyang accent, Guangqiang accent and absorbing the folk music and seasonal tunes of the Pearl River Delta, and is sung in the Guangzhou dialect, so it is also known as "Guangdong Bangzhi", "Guangdong Opera", "Canton Opera". Canton Opera".

History

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Yiyangqiang, Kunshanqiang, Bangzi, Huitong and Hanjiao were introduced into Guangdong, and the vocal cadences performed by the local opera troupes in Guangdong were greatly influenced by these foreign cadences, and the vocal cadences sung were in unison, which was known as the "Guangqiang Cadence", and traces of Yiyangqiang and Kunqiang are still found in the music of Cantonese opera. The traces of Yiyang and Kun can still be seen in the music of Cantonese Opera today. During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, the opera troupes in Guangzhou were divided into local troupes and foreign troupes. Most of the Wai Jiang Ban performed Huiban operas, while most of the local bans performed clapper operas. The early center of activity of the local troupe was Foshan. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, many opera groups from other provinces came to Guangdong, and the local groups drew rich nourishment from the Waijiang groups, so their art became more mature and gradually developed their own characteristics. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty, the Gaoqiang and Kunshan accents gradually declined, and the "Local Classes" adopted the clapper as their main singing style. Later, the influence of Hui Ban became more and more extensive, and the basic singing tune was "bang-ling" (i.e., xi pi and er-ling). At the same time, it also retained part of the Kunshan accent, Yiyang accent, Canton accent, and absorbed Guangdong folk music and seasonal tunes, at this time, the local class was already "very different" from the foreign class, and gradually formed the Cantonese Opera.

In the fourth year of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty (1854), Li Wenmao, an artist of Cantonese opera, led the students of the pear orchard to respond to the uprising of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom together with Chen Kaiso of Tien-Di Guild, and crowned himself as the king, so the Qing government ordered to prohibit the performance of local opera. As a result of the ban, the local opera troupe remained silent for 15 years. During this period, Cantonese Opera artists could only join Han Opera and Anhui Opera troupes, or perform under the name of Peking Opera and other styles. As a result, the clappers and reeds of Cantonese Opera began to merge. Later on, the two reeds in Cantonese Opera even exceeded the clappers. In the eleventh year of the Qing Dynasty (1861), the ban was slightly relaxed, and the local classes rose again. During the Tongzhi period (1862-1874), Cantonese opera artists openly organized classes to perform, and their classes traveled to Henan, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Yunnan, Hunan, Anhui, as well as Hong Kong and Macao.

After the resumption of the performance of Cantonese Opera, there were great changes in the content of the repertoire and the art of performance. During the Xinhai Revolution, Cantonese opera artists were influenced by the Chunliu Society's new opera (civilized opera, i.e., early drama), and organized the "Zhishi Class" to propagate revolutionary and democratic ideas. Under this wave of new ideas, Cantonese Opera began to improve, and its content and form underwent great changes. around 1920, Cantonese Opera was completely localized linguistically, changing from the "official language of the opera house" to Cantonese, and the singing method was changed to the original voice, giving up the false voice used in the clapper style. Both the clappers and the two reeds were sung in a lower octave, unifying the clappers and the reeds in terms of style and singing style.

Before and after 1920, with the increasing development of capitalist business in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao, some Cantonese opera troupes took Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao and other big cities as their base of activities, and were customarily called "provincial and Hong Kong troupes". The "Provincial and Hong Kong Classes" performed in the big theaters in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao and other metropolises, absorbing a great deal of techniques from civilized opera, drama and film, and making great changes from music and singing, character roles, performance routines, stage layout to repertoire. Its basic vocalization is based on the clappers and two reeds, but it also retains other folk rap tunes and introduces popular songs and jazz music. Violins, saxophones, electric guitars, jazz drums and other Western instruments were used as accompaniment. The performance program has been greatly simplified. The roles were changed from the original ten major roles to the "six-pillar system", i.e., Wenwusheng, Xiaosheng, Zhengyin Huadan, Ergang Huadan, Chousheng, and Wusheng. The repertoire is organized to take care of the six pillars. The repertoire includes a large number of new plays, and traditional plays are seldom staged. A large number of new plays were adapted from movies, foreign novels, popular books, plays, and some fabricated plays.

The 1930s was a time of great change for Cantonese opera, and it was also known as the era of "Xue and Ma's struggle for supremacy". Xue Jueshen, a martial artist, and Ma Shizeng, a clown, both contributed to the innovation of Cantonese opera. Xue Juoxian was close to the style of Peking Opera, and his performance skills were more comprehensive. He was capable of performing all kinds of roles, and was nicknamed the "All-purpose Herald", but he excelled in the role of the youngest student, and his representative repertoire included the four major tragedies, such as "Hu Bu Gui" (Hu Bu Gui). Ma Shi won in the role of a clown. In his group plays with "lonely and cold seed" (miser) as the main character, he exposed the ugliness of the feudal wealthy capitalists to the fullest extent, with the style of Moliere. Not only in Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia, for the majority of the audience, in the United States for many years, but also very popular. They were called the "Four Greats" or the "Five Schools" of Cantonese Opera (together with Liao Man-hui, who played the clown), together with Bai Ju-rong and Gui-Ming-Yang. After the implementation of co-education, the Shanghai girls created a lyrical singing style unique to female Cantonese opera singers, and the Hongxiannu was the most influential. Meanwhile, Luo Pinchao, Wen Jufei and Chen Xiaofeng from Guangzhou and the new Ma Shi Zeng, He Feifan and Lin Jia Sheng from Hong Kong were also good at their own styles and were quite influential.

After the establishment of New China, the traditional style of Cantonese Opera was vigorously fostered, and the excellent tradition of Cantonese Opera was inherited along with the innovations. In the early days of the founding of New China, the Victory Yueju Opera Troupe premiered the liberated Cantonese opera Nine Pieces of Clothes in Guangzhou, which was hailed by critics as "the first trumpet blast of the Cantonese opera revolution". From the liberation of Guangzhou to 1952, more than 1,700 productions were staged in Guangzhou theaters. In 1958, the Guangdong Cantonese Opera Theater was established, and by 1982, Guangdong Province had a total of 1,000 opera productions, with a total of 1,700 performances. By 1982, there were more than seventy Cantonese opera troupes in Guangdong Province.

Over the past thirty years, the traditional repertoires of high intellectual and artistic quality that have stood the test of time include Pinggui Bieyao and Luo Cheng Writes a Book. Transplanted and adapted plays account for the largest proportion of the repertoire, and some of the better ones are "Liu Yi Zhuan Shu" and "Baolian Lantern". Among the new dramas with historical and modern themes, those that have been made into films and have a greater impact include "Searching for the Academy" and "Guan Hanqing".

Artistic Characteristics

The artistic characteristics of early Cantonese Opera were similar to those of Han Opera, Peking Opera and Qi Opera. Later, a unique artistic style was gradually formed in the process of development.

The basic voice of Cantonese Opera is the "bang-reed", and it retains some of the tunes of Yiyang and Kun, as well as the tunes of Guangdong folk rap such as Nanyin, Yue Acura, Wooden Fish, Dragon Boat, and Pan-Eye, and folk songs, music songs, period tunes, and minstrel songs. The "bangchun" of Cantonese opera has a strong local color due to the fact that it is sung in dialect and absorbs and integrates local folk songs and ditties, which is different from the general reed opera.

The singing music of Cantonese opera is mainly in the form of plate cadences, supplemented by quqiqi. There are two types of music, namely, the clapper and the erhuang. The clapper has the first plate, the slow plate, the middle plate, the hibiscus, the sighing plate, the brake plate, etc. The erhuang has the first plate, the slow plate, the second stream, the rolling plate, etc. In addition, there is the xipi (equivalent to the Peking opera), which is the most popular form of opera. In addition, there are Xipi (equivalent to the Beijing Opera's "Siping Tone"), Liantan, Nanyin, Banyan, Wooden Fish, Cantonese Acura and other cadences. Although the structure of the lyrics of Nanyin, Muyue and Banyan are different from those of Bangkok and Erhuang, the method of singing the melody is the same; Xipi and Rendan fill in the lyrics according to the song, and the lyrics of their sentences are similar to those of Bangkok and Erhuang. There are two types of songs, namely, the "brand" and the "little song". Most of the cards from the Kunqu and Yiyang absorbed in the cavity, a few for the Guangdong folk ceremonial cards music; small songs, including opera music, Jiangnan silk bamboo, Guangdong music, such as [Liu Qingniang], [dresser], [selling groceries], [Jade Beauty] and the creation of a new song [searching for the needle], [urging the return of the], [hate to fill the breasts], [play Daji], and so on, the two types in addition to the creation of the new song, most of the instrumental, with a more fixed melody.

The accompanying instruments of Cantonese opera are divided into two parts: orchestral music and percussion. The former is mainly led by the gaohu, erxian, yangqin, and throatpipe. There are two different combinations of "hard bow" and "soft bow". The instruments used in the "hard bow" are the two-string, short pipe, long pipe, bamboo violin, small three-string, moon zither, coconut beard, horizontal xiao, etc., with the percussion high side gong. The sound and timbre of these instruments are loud and hard, and they are mostly used to accompany rehearsals and more intense scenes in traditional dramas. The instruments used for the "soft bow" include the erhu (Nanhu), zhonghu, gaohu, yanqin, pipa, small sanxian, medium sanxian, zhongruan, danyuan, long pipes, and dongxiao. In addition to ethnic instruments, Cantonese opera music also boldly employs Western instruments, such as violins, cellos, saxophones, and other bass and middle-range instruments. In conjunction with the percussion instruments, such as the gongs and drums (or the Su gongs and drums, or the medium-bass Beijing gongs and drums), the sound and timbre of these instruments are delicate and softer, and they are used to accompany lyrical passages and the detailed portrayal of the characters' inner feelings. The percussion instruments include the bouyu (board), the measuring board, the sand drum, the double-skinned drum, the cymbals, the gongs, the high side gongs, the su cymbals, the su gongs, the singles (treble gongs), the war drums, the big drums, etc. There is also a complete set of various types of gongs and drums. And there is a relatively complete set of many types of rhythmic gongs and drums points.

The martial arts performance art of Cantonese Opera maintains the rough and simple characteristics of the early "Overhill Class". Many famous actors and actresses are known for their skills in one-leggedness, somersaults, sliding, stepping, eye-rolling, hair-flinging, and beardedness. The martial arts are based on the "Southern School of Martial Arts", including the powerful target, hand bridge, Shaolin boxing, as well as difficult chair work and high platform work. It is also rare to see a male actor perform a small jump and a female actor perform the "waist twist" after the performance. The repertoire of Cantonese Opera is dominated by the plays of the Sheng and Dan characters, with emphasis on singing rather than acting, and more literary than martial arts plays. From real life, the opera has refined and created a number of new performance formulae, and borrowed and absorbed performance techniques from movies and dramas, forming a free, flexible, popular and delicate style of performance that emphasizes on realism.

Roles

Originally, there were 10 major roles, namely, the last, the student, the dan, the jing, the chou, the foreigner, the small, the husband, the sticker, and the miscellaneous, but later on the roles became more and more numerous, Two flower face, male clowns, female clowns, in addition to wudan, fudan, six points, pulling, Wu Guanhu, underlings and so on. The troupe actually valued only the five lines of wusheng, xiaowu, xiaosheng, huadan and chou, and the rest of the lines became secondary.

Wusheng:

Also known as Su Sheng, similar to the Beijing Opera's Lao Sheng. Playing the role of hanging beard of middle-aged or elderly characters, mostly for the important characters in the play, such as the status of the civil servants and military generals, civil and military roles, the repertoire of Wusheng more than robes A Yun, the complexity of the rehearsal, performance is rich, heavy frame and singing, the requirements of the Wusheng bottom to be thick, waist and legs hard work, hands and feet moderate and appropriate. Such as the performance of the character's angry mood, to kneel and walk on one side with the left and right whisking action, and "vibration wings", "vibration face", "vibration hand" and other stunts. Wusheng in the troupe is called "riding the dragon head" line, can be divided into "soft" Wusheng and "hard" Wusheng. The soft wusheng pay attention to singing, reading and frame performance, playing characters such as "six Lang sin son" of Yang Liu Lang, "Su Wu Shepherd" of Su Wu, famous actors have Xinhua, new cabbage, etc.; hard wusheng pay attention to the waist, legs kung fu and frame performance, playing characters such as "six countries sealed phase" of Gong Sun Yan, etc..

Small Wu:

Also known as "pen sticker Wu", equivalent to the Beijing Opera Wusheng. He plays the role of a hero or heroine in his youth or prime, and is mostly a positive or negative character in martial arts plays. Small martial arts to do the work of excellence, pouncing and jumping, long by short, should be good at; and Shaolin martial arts for the authentic, focusing on the use of "Southern Fist"; body work is robust, clean; read the white to be tight, fast, clear, real, a breath of fresh air and the word clear. Xiaowu can be divided into "white face" Xiaowu and "red face" Xiaowu two categories, red-faced Xiaowu body section of the mighty sharp, fiery action, pay attention to martial arts techniques and the use of the eyes, playing the role of characters, such as "Ma Fulong sell arrows" Ma Fulong, "West River Club" Zhao Yingqiang, and so on; The white-faced Xiaowu emphasizes singing but not martial arts, and performs in a suave and gentle manner, such as playing the flirtatious Confucian general Zhou Yu, highlighting Zhou Yu's narrow-mindedness,

Flower Dan:

Young women's roles are played by the flower Dan, who is either noble or lowly and can be either civilized or martial arts, or positive or evil. Flower girl and have a positive seal flower girl, two help flower girl points, positive seal flower girl mostly play a great lady, ladies and women heroes, such as "two degrees of plum" of the Chen Xingyuan, "The West Wing" of Cui Yingying, "Cold River Pass" of the Fan Li flower; two help flower girl generally play tricky and lewd women, such as "Jinlian play uncle" of the Jinlian and so on.

Cheng Dan:

Many of them play the role of a dignified and skillful woman, such as Wang Chun'e in "The Three Maidens Teach Their Children" and Bai Suzhen in "Shilin Sacrifice Pagoda".

Cheng Sheng:

Playing the roles of the old and dignified scribes, courtiers and emperors, most of them are positive characters, such as Su Qin in the Six Kingdoms, and the Jade Emperor in the Jade Emperor's Ascent to the Palace.

Total Sheng:

Originally, they played the main roles in some plays, emphasizing singing, such as Li Kexu in "Borrowing Troops from the Shatuo Kingdom" and Lu Su in "Borrowing the East Wind", etc., and they could be hung with white whiskers, black whiskers, and pale beards, etc.; they were gradually transformed to play the roles of the emperors, courtiers and courtiers, and supporting roles, such as the foreign ministers and the foreign ministers.

Small Sheng:

Often play the role of gentle and elegant, suave young scholar and bachelor. He sings a lot of operas and has a heavy voice, which requires a round and crisp tone and a combination of real and fake voices: his body movements should be dashing and generous, and he should be soft with a strong voice. He has played characters such as Jia Baoyu in Baoyu's Complaint of Marriage, Wang Daju in Wang Daju's Confession, and Lu Mengzheng in Commenting on Snow and Defending the Trace.

Kung Fu:

Mainly plays the role of old and kind-hearted positive characters, including the noble and lowly. The characters are old but healthy, kind and upright. The singing and reading of the songs require a cool and majestic voice, and the words are clear and resonant. The movements are characterized by the use of the eyes and the use of the whiskers. She has played characters such as Bailey Xi in "Bailey Xi's Meeting with Wife" and Xue Bao in "Three Maidens Teaching Their Children".

Da Hua Mian:

Also known as the "outer foot", the actor plays the role of a powerful minister or a treacherous man, such as Yan Song in "Ten Songs of Yan Song" and Dong Zhuo in "Lianhuanji".

Two Flower Face:

The actor plays the role of a loyal, heroic, or violent character. Rough movements, fingers as a tiger's claw, hand above the head when pulling the mountain, usually more eight feet or Ding feet side stand, eyes looking straight ahead to play the characters such as "Wang Yanzhang support the ferry" of Wang Yanzhang, "Luhuadang" of Zhang Fei, "Jing Ke" of the first emperor of Qin Shi Huang.

Male clowns:

Also known as "mesh scarf side", more than playing the character of funny and witty, witty demeanor of the characters, divided into two types of clowns and martial arts clowns. They are divided into two categories: Wen Chou and Wu Chou. Wen Chou plays characters such as Mr. Guangdong in Shandong Rattling Horses and Blind Gong in Blind Gong Asking for Rice, while Wu Chou plays characters such as Shi Qian in Shi Qian Stealing the Armor and Jiao Guangpu in Stopping Horses.

Female clowns:

Also known as "bamboo shoots" and "laughing" dan, they specialize in playing witty and funny old women, or improper matchmakers, bawdies, and evil family nuns.