Chinese Traditional Culture Throughout the Ages (in more detail)

Chinese opera has a long history, and it first emerged from songs and dances imitating labor.

(1) Pre-Qin - the budding period of opera. The "Ode" in the Book of Songs and the "Nine Songs" in the Chu Ci are the songs and dances sung at the time of sacrificing to the gods. From the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, songs and dances to entertain the gods gradually evolved into songs and dances to entertain people. From the Han and Wei Dynasties to the Middle Tang Dynasty, there appeared "Jiao Dai" (i.e., a hundred operas), which mainly focused on competition, "Senjun Opera", which was performed in the form of questions and answers, and "Tap Shake Niang", which played the role of a small story of life, etc. These are the germinal stages. These were all budding dramas.

(2) Tang Dynasty (middle and late) - the formation of opera. After the middle Tang Dynasty, China's theater developed by leaps and bounds, and the art of theater was gradually formed.

(III) Song and Jin dynasties - the development of opera. The Song Dynasty's "miscellaneous operas", the Jin Dynasty's "Yuanben" and the sung form of "Zhu Gongtiao", from music, structure to content, have laid the foundation for the Yuan Dynasty's miscellaneous operas.

(4) Yuan Dynasty - the maturity of the opera. In the Yuan Dynasty, "miscellaneous operas" were greatly developed on the basis of the original, and became a new type of theater. It possessed the basic characteristics of drama, marking the stage of maturity of China's theater.

Yuan miscellaneous drama is on the fertile soil of folk opera, inheritance and development of the previous generation of various literary and artistic achievements, through the workshop, rows of hospitals, actors, musicians and "book club" talent **** with the efforts, and improve and create a comprehensive stage art. In form, Yuan miscellaneous operas with the four major sets of the Northern Quartet arrangement of the storyline, the incoherence, the use of wedges combined to form a book of four folds of a wedge of the usual format (Wang Shifu's "The Western Wing" is unique in the Yuan miscellaneous operas in the long story, *** wrote five twenty-one folds), each fold of a number of tunes with the same palace key to form a suite, and, if necessary, add another "cuneiform Each of these is composed of a suite of several pieces in the same house key, with a "wedge" added when necessary. At the end, the content of the play is summarized in two, four or eight verses, called "title". Each section consists of three parts: the lyrics, the narration (bingbai) and the section (kopan). The lyrics are filled out according to the tune of the tutor's mood, also known as the text, lyrics or lyrics. Its role is to narrate the storyline, characterization. All the words rhyme with the same rhyme. Narration is a kind of artistic means to express the plot or explain the relationship of the characters in the form of speech, which is divided into dialogues (dialogues between the characters), monologues (words in which the characters express their personal feelings and desires alone) and narration (words that the characters say to the audience behind the backs of other people in the play on the stage), and with whiteness (narration inserted in the lyrics), etc. The characters are the movements and expressions. Section is action, expression, etc. A play is usually sung by the end of the main character or the main character, while the other characters have no singing. The main singer is called "Moben", and the main singer is called "Danben".

Roles:

End: male role. In the Yuan dynasty opera, the male protagonist of the play is the Zhengduo.

Dan: playing female characters. Zhengdan (the female protagonist in the play), Xiaodan, and Wearing Dan.

Jing: commonly known as "flower face", "flower face", most of them play the character or appearance of the male characters have special points. For example, the official in "Dou E Grievance" belongs to the net.

Chou: also known as the "three flower face" or "small flower face", mostly play the character of witty characters, there are clowns and martial arts clowns.

Outside: Yuan miscellaneous dramas have outside the end, outside the Dan, outside the net, etc., is the end, Dan, net and other secondary roles in the line. Supervisors - outside the end.

Miscellaneous: also known as "Miscellaneous Dang". The name of the role of the old woman. For example: Cai Granny.

Yuan miscellaneous drama writers, in just a few decades, the creation of at least five or six hundred kinds of scripts, preserved to the present also has more than 150 kinds. These works comprehensively and profoundly reflect the social life of the Yuan Dynasty, and many of them are excellent works that have become our precious cultural heritage. For example, Guan Hanqing's Dou'e Grievance y exposes the dark reality of Yuan Dynasty society by depicting the misery of Dou'e, a kind-hearted and innocent child bride, and reflects the cruel exploitation of loan sharks, extortion and blackmail by ruffians, and favoritism of corrupt officials, as well as praises the strong will of the oppressed who would rather die than give in to the spirit of resistance. Ma Zhiyuan's Autumn in the Han Palace, with the help of historical themes, through the depiction of Wang Zhaojun's sacrifice for the country, Mao Yanshou's betrayal of his country to save his honor, and the corruption and incompetence of the princes and ministers, mercilessly exposed the national oppression of the Yuan Dynasty, and gave a bitter ridicule to the rulers of the time. Wang Shifu's The Story of the Western Chamber depicts the story of young men and women fighting for marriage autonomy in feudal society. From "stunning", "joint chanting" to "relying on marriage", it fully expresses Cui Yingying's desire for love. However, she was born in a famous family and was subjected to the cultivation and constraints of feudalism, therefore, there are twists and turns and repetitions, such as "making trouble with Jane" and "Lai Jane". In "Listening to the Qin", "Good Day" and "Long Pavilion", she finally embarks on the path of rebellion, adding a strong comic color to the work. The whole play to fight for marriage autonomy and abide by the "parents' orders" of the conflict as the main line, to Cui Yingying, Zhang Gong and Hongniang three misunderstandings and conflicts as a sub-line, intertwined with each other, rhythmically unfolding, when the tension, when the relaxation, when the movement, when the quiet, when the joy, when the sadness, when the time to get together and when the scattering, free to splash, colorful. Its theme of "may the world's love become a family" and distinctive personality, vivid artistic image, have a strong artistic charm, can give a person a strong infection, y loved by the masses.

The four great Yuan composers: Guan Hanqing - "Dou'e Grievance"; Zheng Guangzu - "The Soul of a Sinful Girl"; Bai Pu - "Wutong Rain"; Ma Zhiyuan -- "Autumn in the Han Palace";

(E) Ming and Qing Dynasties -- the boom period of opera. When opera reached the Ming Dynasty, legends developed. The predecessor of the Ming Dynasty legend was the Southern Opera of the Song and Yuan Dynasties (Southern Opera is the abbreviation of Nanqu Opera and Wenwen, which is an emerging form of theater developed on the basis of Song Dynasty miscellaneous operas, combined with southern regional tunes. Wenzhou is its birthplace). Southern opera in the system and the northern miscellaneous plays are different: it is not subject to the limit of four folds, and not subject to the limit of one person singing in the end, there is the opening of the account of the plot, mostly happy ending, the style of most of the more lingering, not as impassioned as the northern miscellaneous plays in the form of a freer, more convenient to express the life. Unfortunately, very few copies of the early Southern Opera have been preserved, and it was not until the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty that the Southern Opera began to flourish, and through the processing and enhancement of the literati, the short operas, which were originally not sufficiently tightly organized, were finally transformed into fairly complete full-length plays. For example, Gao Ming's Pipa Tale is a work of transition from southern opera to legend. The subject matter of this work, from folklore, a more complete performance of a story, and a certain degree of drama, was once known as "the ancestor of the revival of the southern opera". In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was a large number of legendary writers and scripts, among which the one with the greatest achievement was Tang Xianzu. He wrote many legendary plays in his life, and The Peony Pavilion is his masterpiece. Through the story of Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei, the work glorifies the spirit of resistance against feudalism, the pursuit of happiness and love, and the demand for individual liberation. The author gives love the power to bring it back to life, and it overcomes the constraints of feudalism and achieves final victory. This was of far-reaching social significance in a society firmly ruled by feudal rites at that time. Over the past three hundred years, this play has been loved by readers and audiences, and to this day, the "Boudoir" and "Dreams" are still active on the stage of opera performances, radiating its artistic glory.

According to legend, in the early years of the Qing Dynasty, there were four major types of opera in Beijing, namely, the Southern Kun, the Northern Eagle, the Eastern Willow, and the Western Bang. According to the record of the Jiaqing eight years: "there is a Ming started Kun cavity, the ocean is full of ears, and Eagle, bang, qin, willow cavity, the north and south of the prosperous meeting, the sheng chime the same sound, singing and dancing, the actor gathered, no sense of the Beijing." Also explains the historical situation. Among the so-called South Kun that is popular in the area of Kunshan in the South Kunshan cavity; North Eagle Guide to the combination of theater and Northern Qu, produced in Jiangxi Yiyang area of Yiyang cavity, that is, passed to the north to form the high cavity, that is, then prevalent in the capital of the Beijing cavity; East Willow that is popular in the Shandong Liuzi cavity; West bang is naturally the northwest of China's widely circulated clapper, which is also known as Qin腔. This illustrates the grandeur of the four sides of the East, West, South, North and South artists gathered in Beijing.

From the current point of view, the above four cavities have far exceeded their original scope, some have long been throughout the country in many provinces, Yiyang cavity (i.e., high腔) is in Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Fujian, Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hebei, widely spread, so that the people concerned that this statement is not scientific, but the historical formation of this statement is still objectively reflecting the historical facts. Historical facts. From the current distribution of opera genres, Kun Opera still has a considerable audience base in Shanghai, Nanjing, Zhejiang and Hunan. Yiyangqiang not only took root in the north, from the Qianlong period, in the capital, "six famous classes, nine city rotation", but also on the Beijing Opera and the formation of a number of northern opera plays an important role in the formation of the influence of the circulating in the Jiangnan area is also mainly in many northern language areas. Although Liuziqiang (including the Liuqin opera influenced by it) is popular in Henan, northern Jiangsu, southern Hebei and northern Anhui, its important activities are still in Qufu, Tai'an and Linyi in Shandong. Qinqiang (i.e. Shan-Shaanxi Opera) and its development from Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places of the clapper chamber although so far prevalent in the north, but we see in Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi and other places of the Qinqiang has a deeper, more ancient roots and a wider audience, so that the "South Kun, North Eagle, East Liou, West bang" is a historical basis for the statement. historical basis.