A brief history of Lu opera

Popular in central Anhui, western Anhui, large areas along the Yangtze River and parts of the south of the Yangtze River. Lu Opera was developed on the basis of folk songs, Hefei Gate songs, Chaohu Mountain songs and lanterns in Dabie Mountain in western Anhui, and absorbed the vocals of gongs and drums, Duangong Opera and Haizi Opera. Because its creation and performance center is in the middle of Anhui, it was under the jurisdiction of Luzhou in ancient times, so it was finally named as Luzhou Opera. It has a history of nearly 200 years.

Traditional Lu opera plays can be divided into three types: local opera, passbook opera and coloratura opera. The main content of this play is love and solving crimes. The passbook drama is a wonderful part extracted from this drama, and the coloratura drama is mainly comedy and farce. The more influential Lu operas include Colorful Loupei, Medicinal Tea, Tianbao Map, Wood Axe, Borrowing Luo Clothes, Playing Reed Flowers, Begging for Money, Lilac Leaves, Looking at Pictures, Playing Yarn, and Ten Golden Fans.

origin

There is no historical data to verify the origin of Lu Opera. According to the legend of old artists, Li Ruyao, a blind artist who is nearly eighty years old and one of the leading figures of "West Road Lu Opera", once reported in the Business Daily with the title "Blind Artists Textual Research on Lu Opera Originated from Huoshan". The county has rich artistic soil of "the source of Lu Opera" and decided to revitalize the art of Lu Opera through a series of measures to create a "hometown of Lu Opera". It is understood that in order to revitalize the art of Lu Opera, the county decided to compile 108 traditional Lu Opera into a book, organize the creation of a number of Lu songs suitable for fast-paced modern life for beginners to learn to sing, and at the same time compile the textbook "Basic Knowledge of Lu Opera" as an elective course for primary and secondary school students in the county; The special fund for rural cultural construction in our province is 6,543,800 yuan, and the special fund for the county is 2,300,000 yuan to support folk art societies, so that the Lu Opera Class Society will eventually spread to all towns and villages in the county; A number of authentic CDs of "West Lu Opera" will also be recorded and released to the public.

develop

During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, professional class clubs performed in a mobile way. The early Lu Opera was based on folk songs, door songs (door words), folk flower basket dances and flower drum lantern dances in Dabie Mountain and Huaihe River in Anqing City. His performance of "Selling Orchids" is sung in the tune of flower drum and lamp, which is popular in Huaihe River area. The drama "Da Sang" sings the "Huada Stone Tune" popular in Dabie Mountain. At that time, most of the performances were in the form of singing a dance, such as "fence", "gate rotor", "through train", "scissors" and "lotus leaf turning over", which were similar to the flower drum lanterns in Huaihe River area. In the process of development, Lu opera was influenced by the sunspot drama popular in Funan, northern Anhui and Gushi, Henan. Later, he absorbed and melted some plays and vocals of Hubei ancient painting drama and Huai River Duangong Tune (wizard), and constantly enriched himself, such as Duangong Tune aria, Hugh lilac and Zhang Xianggong's dowry. Dramas such as "begging for money" and "picking tea" come from Hubei ancient painting drama. Allegro Huangmei tune comes from ancient paintings in southern Anhui. The early Lu Opera Club had less than 10 people and could only perform on the grass platform in rural areas. The repertoires include some life dramas, such as Dianbarley, Youchun, Hongwu Release Your Horse, and Xue Mei Jiaozi. Before and after the Revolution of 1911, he performed with Anhui Opera in the same class, which was called "Siping Band Folding Class" ("Siping" refers to Anhui Opera and "Folding" refers to Shandong Opera). In the 1930s, some troupes entered Wuhu, Hefei and other cities to perform, and joined classes with Beijing opera, which was called chaotic troupe. Therefore, plays and performances are also influenced by Huizhou Opera and Peking Opera.

. 1985, a stone tablet was found in Chaohu City, Anhui Province. Above the monument, there are four characters "Tang Zheng Chen Shi". The inscription is about 400 words, which was written by Chen Bing, the magistrate of Chaoxian County. There are four prohibitions, and the second prohibition refers to seven plays. The discovery of this stone tablet not only proves that the name of Daoqi Opera appeared more than 130 years ago, but also provides a reliable clue for its age: that is, the age of Daoqi Opera can be traced back to around 1840 (Daoguang and Xianfeng years in Qing Dynasty).

nature

In the old society, most of the Lu drama clubs were semi-professional (that is, farming in busy farming and singing in slack farming), and they flowed in rural fairs for a long time. Generally, when performing, they don't go on stage, but only play stalls. Ordinary actors lack basic skills. As long as he has a good voice, he can do some tricks Over time, he formed a tendency to sing again and not do it. Most of the repertoires performed are "two small" dramas and "three small" dramas. Most of the vocals are chorus, accompanied by gongs and drums, and there is no string. Three or five people can get together to perform, which is called "two strikes and three sings". The actors wear several horns and take turns to replace them and also play gongs and drums. Later, it developed into "three strikes and seven sings" and "seven busy and eight not busy", and has not yet formed a fixed role system. In the past, there were no female artists in Lu Opera, and the roles were mostly played by immature boys with sweet and crisp voices. By the end of the 1920s, Lu Opera Troupe began to enter the city, with its repertoire constantly enriched and its roles and types of work correspondingly increased, and it was divided into six types: Hua Dan, Qingyi, Laosheng and Clown. During the prosperous period of Daoqi Opera, every time it was performed in various places, it absorbed local popular operas or folk art to enrich itself. Some class associations also cooperate with Anhui opera and Beijing opera classes intermittently. First, Anhui opera and Beijing opera classes performed the main play, and then continued to perform the small play of Lu opera. This practice is called "four-level and one-fold" class or "random play class" The joint performance with Huizhou Opera and Peking Opera has made the performers of props play have a new and different evolution in singing, doing, reading and accompaniment of gongs and drums. However, the level of the Daoqi Troupe has continuously entered the city to perform, and great changes have taken place in art, because it has to adapt to the appreciation habits of urban audiences.