What is Yue Opera?

Traditional opera forms in China. Mainly popular in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian and other places. Yue Opera is good at lyricism, mainly singing, with clear and beautiful voice, beautiful and beautiful performance, which is really touching, and the local color in the south of the Yangtze River is very strong. Shaoxing opera actors were first performed by male classes, and later changed to all-female classes.

history

Yue Opera used to be a popular rap form in Shengxian County, Zhejiang Province. In the spring of the thirty-second year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1906), it began to evolve into a form of traditional Chinese opera that was performed on the grass platform in rural areas. It was once called Xiaoge Class, Dedu Class and Shaoxing Wenxi. Artists are basically male farmers who are semi-agricultural and semi-artistic, so they are called male class. In the performance advertisement of Shanghai News September 14 (1925), it was called "Yue Opera" for the first time.

On May 13, 6th year of the Republic of China, Xiao Geban entered Shanghai for the first time and performed in the "Xinhua Garden" in Shiliupu. Because of its rough art, the audience is few. Then three classes of artists came to Shanghai and failed. After learning the performance skills of Shaoxing taipan and Peking Opera, artists improved their artistic level, and Xiaoqu class began to establish itself in Shanghai in 8 years of the Republic of China.

Since the 9th year of the Republic of China, Xiao Ge has gathered a group of well-known actors and compiled some fascinating new plays, such as butterfly lovers, Yu Han Ji and Meng Lijun. These plays adapted to the rise of feminism and gender equality after the May 4th Movement and were welcomed by the audience. Later, Zhou Lin, the boss of Shengping music circle, invited three musicians from the folk music organization "Opera Guest Class" in Shengxian County to form the first professional accompaniment band in the history of Yue Opera. When playing, the key is 15, which follows the habit of Shaoxing taipan and is called "Gong Zheng key" or "orthodox key" for short. From then on, "tuning the stringed instrument" became the main cavity. And draw lessons from Shaoxing big class, initially establish the musical framework of banqiang. From September of 10 to September of1/0/2000, male artists successively renamed their operas "Shaoxing Wenxi Opera", absorbed performances of Beijing Opera and Shao Opera, and developed them into costume dramas. Influenced by Shanghai Peking Opera, the repertoire is mainly composed and performed in amusement parks such as "Great World" and "New World", as well as teahouses, hotels and small theaters. The main actors are Wang Yongchun, Zhi, Xiao Danwei, Jin Xuefang, Laosheng Ma Chaoshui, Clown Ma Ashun and Da Mian.

12 In July, Wang Jinshui, a businessman from Shengxian County, invited Jin Rongshui, a male class artist, to go back to his hometown to start the first female class, and enrolled more than 20 girls under 13. The following year, in 65438+ 10 and 65438+April, the female class performed on the Shengping Song Stage in Shanghai, which was called "Temminick Little Song Class". /kloc-in 0/8, the second women's class was established in Shengxian County, and it was also held later. Since the end of the 20th century, a number of actresses such as Chen Miaoxian, Lu, Dong 'an Stage and Four Seasons Spring Class have come to Shanghai successively, but they still appear in the form of juggling.

From 17 to 1 year, the female class flooded into Shanghai, and the number increased to 36 in the second half of the 1930s. Almost all the famous actresses of Yue Opera gathered in Shanghai. The newspaper commented that "women's Yue Opera in Shanghai is all the rage, and it has been overwhelming recently". Because there were no successors, the male class was eventually replaced by the female class.

After the establishment of women's Yueju Opera in Shanghai, a group of practitioners of Yueju Opera, represented by Yao Shuijuan, made changes to meet the needs of the environment and audience at that time, which was called "improved literary drama". Troupe and class club compete to compile new plays. Over the past four years, he has edited and performed more than 400 new plays with a wide range of themes and diverse styles. Most screenwriters have engaged in "civilized drama", and the drama generally adopts the curtain system. The main screenwriters at that time were Fenjie, Wen Zhong, Hu Zhifei, Tao Xian and Tamia Liu. The diversification of repertoire content has caused corresponding changes in performance forms, and there has been a trend of learning from brother dramas in succession. At that time, some students studied Shanghai-style Peking Opera, such as Shang, who had performed the famous Zhou drama Regret in the Late Ming Dynasty. Some students apply for songs, such as Shi and Tu Xinghua transplanting a cheongsam to play Thunderstorm; Others study film and television dramas, such as Yao Shuijuan's "The Story of Two Martyrs of Jiang Laowu" and "Big Family", with realistic scenery and rickshaws on the stage. In the way of operation, it broke the feudal stereotypes and implemented the manager system, with the front and back offices in charge.

The most famous actors in this period are "three flowers, one roll and one laurel", namely Shi, Zhao Ruihua, Xiao Dangui, and the younger ones are Tu Xinghua, Zhu Su 'e and. Young actors like Yuan Xuefen, Yin Guifang, Fan Ruijuan, Fu Quanxiang and Xu Yulan have made their mark.

In 3 1 and 10, Yuan Xuefen took drama as an example and began to reform in Dalai Theater. In the past two years, the directors hired successively are (Yao Luding), Han Yi, (Liu), Xiao Zhang, Lu Zhong, Nan Wei, etc., most of whom are young amateur playwrights. They called the reformed Yue Opera "New Yue Opera". In September, 1933, Yin Guifang and Zhu Shuizhao also carried out reforms in Longmen Theater. Since then, all the major Yue Opera troupes in Shanghai have joined the ranks of "New Yue Opera", and the face of Yue Opera has undergone tremendous changes in just a few years.

The reform of Yue Opera is, first of all, to compile new dramas, establish a script system and abolish the curtain system. Even performing traditional plays has been arranged and adapted. The content of the new play has changed a lot compared with the past. Many directors and leading actors attach importance to the social benefits of drama, advocate positive and beneficial influence on the audience, and compile and perform a large number of dramas that are anti-feudal, expose social darkness and carry forward patriotic ideas. In May of the 35th year of the Republic of China, Lu Xun's novel "Blessing" was adapted into "Sister Xianglin" in Xuesheng Troupe, which attracted the attention of the underground organization of China * * * producers to Yue Opera and even the whole local opera. In September of that year, Zhou Enlai watched the performance of Snow Sound Troupe in Shanghai, and then gave instructions and arrangements to domestic underground organizations on how to do a good job in local opera and music. Party member Qian and Liu Housheng were sent to be directors of Yue Opera. Later, progressives in Shanghai's literary and art circles and the press also supported Yuan Xuefen's being dumped by hooligans, the joint benefit performance of Ten Sisters of Yue Opera "Love between Mountains and Rivers" and the struggle to rehabilitate Xiao Dangui.

There has also been a major breakthrough in singing. In the early 1940s, when Yuan Xuefen played "ChristianRandPhillips" and Fan Ruijuan played "Liang Zhu's Mourning History", they both cooperated with pianist Zhou Baocai to create soft and sad "foot tone" and "chord tone". Later, these two tunes developed into the main theme of Yue Opera, and gradually formed different schools.

In terms of performance, on the one hand, Yue Opera draws lessons from the expression methods of characters' personality and psychological activities in dramas and movies, on the other hand, it draws lessons from the beautiful dance characters and program movements in Kunqu Opera and Peking Opera, and gradually forms a style of combining freehand brushwork with realism.

In the stage art, three-dimensional scenery, multicolored lights, acoustics and oil painting pigments are used to make up, and clothing styles and colors are reformed, and the materials are soft and elegant, which has become an organic part of the whole stage art.

This series of reforms has gradually established a formal artistic mechanism of choreography, performance and sound beauty, and established an institution in charge of stage comprehensive art in the drama department. The reform of Yue Opera has changed the composition of the audience. Besides the original housewives, it has also attracted a large number of factory women workers and middle school students. On the eve of liberation, several major troupes engaged in Yue Opera, such as Xue Sheng, Dongshan, Yulan, Yunhua, Shao Zhuang, etc., were directly or indirectly influenced by the production party of China, and they were full of vitality.