Historical allusions of lanterns

Lantern color generally refers to the early lighting and scenery in traditional Chinese opera performances, which is different from ordinary traditional buildings. Also known as "light masonry" or "color masonry" and "color head". The traditional Chinese opera performances in China that pay attention to lanterns are called "Lantern Opera" or "Colorful Opera" or "Lantern Opera". Troupe that often calls for this kind of drama is called "colorful class". Most lantern-colored dramas are bizarre and haunted. Decorate and render with painted landscapes and lights to attract the audience. Around1920s, it was gradually replaced by realistic scenery and institutional scenery.

Lantern Festival is the product of the landlord class in the late Ming Dynasty. The earliest recorded Lantern Festival is Liu Huiji's female drama Tang You Yue Gong. Zhang Dai described this in detail in Tao An Meng Yi. There is a scene of the Moon Palace in the play. The Moon Palace is a round device with a layer of tulle. "Internal combustion of several' Saiyueming', the flame is blue and early dawn"; Around the Moon Palace, Yang Jiaodeng (a lampshade made of angular sheets, also known as "corner lights") is used to show colorful clouds. This was a new thing at that time, so Zhang Dai praised the monitor Liu Huiji as "whimsical, trying to make up for the defects in the pear garden". At the end of Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, Li Dou recorded in Yangzhou Ship Records that there were "twenty-four lights in the three-story archway" in the "inner wardrobe" of salt merchants, which was also a special light color. The most decorated lanterns are all kinds of commitment dramas of the Qing court, equipped with braking devices that can be lifted and opened. For example, in the performance of "Underground Golden Lotus", five golden lotus flowers rose from the "underground well" (the basement of the stage), and petals were released on the stage, in which five giant buddhas sat (Cao Xinquan's Memoirs of a Palace in the Former Qing Dynasty). At the end of the palace building, artists were also influenced by western painting and tended to be realistic. For example, in the ninth year of Guangxu (1883), Zhang Qi, who entered the palace, said that "building bricks at the end of the building involves many western methods. Although there is a mountain, a water, a grass and a tree, there must be realism "(Zhang Cixi's Biography of Yan Dou). Lantern Festival was popular in folk commercial theaters in the late Qing Dynasty. Prior to this, the Sixi Class in Meiqiaoling rehearsed a number of lantern-colored plays, such as Mu Lian Save Mother, Jia Zi Tu, Ghost Hand Tu, Pan Si Cave and Lapras Hui. Later, when Yang Longshou founded two classes, Xiaorongchun and Tianxian, he hired Zhang Qi to "build thousands of pieces at the end" (Biography of Yan Dou Celebrities). This performance atmosphere spread from Beijing to Tianjin, Shanghai and other big cities.

The rise of lanterns enriches the visual image of traditional Chinese opera performance to a certain extent, so it can be welcomed by the audience. However, most of the teams that perform lantern shows do not pay attention to ideology and performing arts, and they can only show off for a while without artistic vitality. In the diary of the seventh year of Guangxu (188 1), Li Ciming once criticized the picture of "Your Birthday" performed by Sixi Class as "colorful and ugly, and all subjects are evil". Wang Mengsheng said in the Story of the Pear Garden that there is a colorful class in Tianjin called Taiqingheng, which is "the best in the world" and "only sings in the class and never gives up for a long time. Therefore, people are more important than things. " These words just sum up the historical lessons of the decline of the Lantern Festival.