Ancient and Traditional Opera: Suzhou Kunqu Opera

Suzhou is a city with a strong classical flavor, where there are not only the world-famous Suzhou Gardens, but also the melodious Kunqu Opera. Kunqu, also known as Kun Opera, originated in the Kunshan area of Suzhou and is the oldest type of opera in China. It is the oldest opera in China. Kunqu serves as a vehicle for spreading the culture of Suzhou to the rest of the world. Now let's learn more about what artistic characteristics of Suzhou Kunqu.

Voice line

As a kind of theater that once had a great influence on the whole country, Kun Opera can be miraculously resurrected again after all the hardships and difficulties, which is closely related to its own superb artistic charms, and its artistic achievements are firstly manifested in its music.

The Kun Opera is a beautiful opera, characterized by a lingering, soft and long-lasting sound. In the singing skills focus on the control of the voice, the rhythm of the speed of the staccato speed and the bite of the word spitting sound, the scene accompanied by a complete musical score.

"Water mill cavity". This new cavity laid down the characteristics of the Kun Opera singing, fully embodied in the slow song (i.e., "fine tunes") in the southern song, specifically expressed in slowing down the beat, slowing down the tempo, in order to use the melody in the more decorative cadences, in addition to the usual one board, one board, one board, one board, and then appeared in the "grant board song

Comparatively speaking, the sound of the Northern Songs favors the downward spiral, with strong jumps. It uses a seven-tone scale different from the five-tone scale (basically without semitones) used in the southern opera, but in the Kunshan cavity's long-term absorption of the northern opera singing process, the original characteristics of the northern opera were gradually dissolved into the "southern opera" singing style, so in the Kun Opera performance repertoire, the northern opera has a complete set of both the use of the song, and also a single tune card excerpts, and the "north and south combined set". The "North-South Combined Set".

The use of "North-South set" is very distinctive: the general situation is that the Northern Quartet is sung by a character, and the Southern Quartet is sung by several different characters. The use of these north-south songs is based on the plot, so that the music is as perfect as possible to meet the needs of the content of the play.

From the North-South song itself, there are still "borrowing the palace", "foul tune", "set of songs" and other techniques. The original set of tunes, regardless of the North and South Songs, all belong to a Gong tune of the tune problem, when the song requires a significant change in mood, the same Gong tune within the tune can not be competent, you can borrow the other Gong tune of the appropriate tune. For example, "Peony Pavilion - Dream", the tune used successively is [Hillside Goat] (Shangtiao), [Mountain Peach Red] (Yuetiao), [Bao old catalyst] (Huangzhong Gong), [Mian hitchhiking floss] (Yuetiao).

In terms of singing techniques, the Kun Opera focuses on voice control, rhythmic speed and pronunciation, and there are "豁", "叠", "擞", There is also a distinction between "open", "fold", "brio", "ooh" and other cadences and the character singing of various roles. The music of the board beat, in addition to the southern song "complimentary board" will be four beats of the slow song slowed down by a factor of two, regardless of the north and south of the song, including the usual use of the three-eyed board, one-eyed board, running water board and scattered board. They have many variations in the actual singing, all subject to the mood of the play and the role of the proper mood.

The performance of Kun Opera has a whole set of rigorous performance forms of "singing and dancing".

Characteristics of Kun Opera

The most important characteristics of Kun Opera are its strong lyricism, delicate movements, and the clever and harmonious combination of singing and dancing. Kun Opera is a comprehensive art that combines singing, dancing, mediation, and white various means of performance with each other, and its long history of performance has formed the performance characteristics of singing and dancing, which are especially reflected in the performance stances of the various roles, and its dancing stances can be roughly divided into two kinds: one is the auxiliary gesture when speaking and the dance that focuses on the writing that is developed from the gestures; and the other is the lyrical dance with the lyrics, which is not only the superb dancing movement but also the expression of the character's heart and soul and the character's personality, as well as the lyric dance. It is also an effective means to express the character's mind and the meaning of the words.

Kun Opera has absorbed and inherited the traditions of ancient folk dance and court dance, and has accumulated a wealth of experience in the close integration of rap and dance through long-term stage performance practice, and has created a number of dance performances that emphasize depiction to meet the needs of narrative and scenic scenes. It became a storytelling opera with a strong sense of storytelling. Adapting to the needs of the performance field with strong lyricism and movement, many lyrical dance performances were created, which became the main performance means of many single-fold lyrical song and dance dramas. Representative repertoire, such as "Xichuan Tu - Luhuadang", "Jingzhongji - Sweeping Qin", "Moon Pavilion - Treading Umbrella", "Treasure Sword - Night Run", "Lianhuanji - Asked to explore", "Tiger Bags Bomb - Mountain Pavilion" and so on.

The recitation of Kun Opera is also very distinctive. Since Kun Opera was developed from Wuzhong, its voice is characterized by the Wu Nong soft language. Among them, the clowns also have a kind of local white based on the Wu dialect, such as Su Bai and Yangzhou Bai, etc. This kind of marketplace language around Wuzhong has a strong sense of life, and often uses a quick rhyme, which is extremely characteristic. In addition, the singing of Kun Opera has extremely strict norms for word sound, line and rhythm, forming a complete singing theory.

Stage art

Includes rich costume styles, elaborate colors and decorations, as well as the use of masks.

In addition to inheriting the costume styles of opera roles since the Yuan and Ming dynasties, some of the costumes of Kun Opera are very similar to those popular in society at that time. Reflected in the theater, the military generals had their own kinds of military uniforms, and the civil officials also had different kinds of clothes in accordance with the different class levels of feudal society. The face is used in both the Jing and the Chou lines. Belonging to the raw, Dan's very few characters are also occasionally used, such as the Monkey King (raw), Zhong Wuyan (Dan), the color is basically red, white and black.

The art of Kun Opera, after years of integration and processing, has formed a fairly perfect system, and this system has long occupied a unique position in Chinese opera, so the art of Kun Opera is honored as "the ancestor of all plays", and has a far-reaching impact on the development of the entire opera, and many local operas have absorbed its artistic nourishment to varying degrees, some of which remain. Many local operas have absorbed its art to varying degrees, among which there are still part of the Kun Opera.