Introduction to the origin of Huangmei Opera?

Huangmei Opera originated in Huangmei County, Hubei Province.

Huangmei Opera is the main local opera in Anhui Province. Most people are used to thinking that the birthplace of Huangmei Opera is Anhui, which is not accurate. Huangmei (county) itself is in Hubei, but it is at the junction of Hubei, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. More than a hundred years ago, Huangmei tune was popular here, also called "tea-picking drama". A tribe in this little play gradually moved eastward and became a climate in Anqing, Anhui Province, forming the later Huangmei Opera.

In the early Huangmei Opera, most of the local folk songs were directly put on the stage to show the local life, especially the story of rural life. For example, "Beating Pig Grass" tells the story of a rural boy and a girl who have conflicts because of mowing grass and damaging crops, and resolve the conflicts through dialogue. Among them, "Lang is a flower, elder sister is a flower, and the next pair …" has always been a popular song. Another example is Lovers Watching Lights, which depicts the colorful life of the city through the experience of a young couple watching lights on the Lantern Festival. Soon, Huangmei Opera also made some achievements in moving and performing big plays. These plays are mainly influenced by Qingyang dialect and Huizhou tune, such as Wujin Ji and Seven Fairys Descending from Earth. Among them, The Seven Fairys Descending from the Earth was honed and revised several times, and finally it was named Fairy Descending from the Earth, which became the most influential masterpiece of Huangmei Opera. It should be pointed out that the early Huangmei Opera was basically a literary form for farmers to entertain themselves.

Since the 1920s, Huangmei Opera has gradually taken shape and embarked on the road of professional performance. One of its important signs is that the performance venue has stepped onto the urban stage from the countryside. First, professional class clubs appeared in Huaining, Anhui. Huaining is known as the "hometown of drama". Huangmei tune is very prosperous here. From the performance side, there are many plays, talents and societies; From the viewer's point of view, there are many audiences and markets. As a result, a number of theatrical troupes came into being. 1926, Ding Yongquan (Dan Jiao), Cao Zengxiang (Xiao Sheng), Ding Heshou (Clown) and other famous actors' clubs were active in Anqing, and then took root here.

After Huangmei Opera entered the city, it was influenced by Beijing Opera, Yue Opera, Yang Opera, Huai Opera and Pingju Opera, and its performance level was greatly improved. In terms of repertoires, other repertoires such as Wen, Hong Bi Yuan, Gorgeous Garden and The Tale of Bees have also been adapted and transplanted. Musically, the traditional singing method has been reformed to some extent, mainly by reducing the padding words with strong dialect and dialect color in the traditional singing method, making the singing method concise and lively, and easy to read and understand word by word. From the performance point of view, it absorbed some stylized actions of the brother drama. Such as opening and closing doors, dressing and drinking. Others are better than rural performances in clothing, props, installations, accompaniment and many other aspects. Huangmei Opera has matured in this period, especially in the 1940s.

The greater development of Huangmei Opera was after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Due to the state's emphasis on local operas, in order to strengthen the artistic strength, the state has selected some professionals in literature, drama, music and art to participate in the reform of Huangmei Opera. With the joint efforts of old and new artists, Huangmei Opera has taken on a new look. Huangmei Opera has jumped from Anqing Opera to the largest opera in Anhui Province. Today, Huangmei Opera and Huangshan Mountain are called "Huang Er of Anhui Province", which has become the pride of Anhui Province.

During this period, Huangmei Opera and singing were reformed. Musically, it has enhanced the expressive force of Pingji's singing and broken through the limitation that "coloratura" can only be used in traditional Chinese opera. At the same time, it skillfully draws lessons from the musical elements of folk songs and creates a new cavity that is harmonious with traditional singing. Accompaniment is no longer intermittent "three strikes and seven sings", but a band combining Chinese and western music, which greatly improves the expressive force of traditional Chinese opera from the musical atmosphere. There are many plays performed in this period, but most of them have been sorted out and adapted. For example, a couple watching the lights, a fairy match, blue bridge pumping, mending, butterfly lovers, mourning, Liujing, Chunxiangchuan, female Xu, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Party. Among them, Fairy Descent, Woman Xu and Cowherd and Weaver Girl were made into movies, which played an important role in the wide spread of Huangmei Opera and the preservation of the excellent features of Huangmei Opera artists.

When it comes to Huangmei Opera, we can't help but mention a group of old artists who have made great contributions to Huangmei Opera, such as Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang and Pan Jingli. Among them, Yan Fengying is the most prominent. So far, whenever people mention Huangmei Opera, they will mention the fairy couple, and whenever they mention the fairy couple, they will mention Yan Fengying, the actor of the Seven Fairies. Imagine how many people can sing Yan Fengying's "Kill Two Birds with One Tree" in China today! Traditional operas, especially local operas, have become popular songs, sung by thousands of people, to which Yan Fengying contributed.

Yan Fengying was born in a poor family in Anqing on 1930. /kloc-When he was 0/3 years old, he began to learn to sing Huangmei Opera from Yan. Because of Yan Fengying's crisp and sweet voice, beautiful and dignified appearance and strong artistic understanding, her performance was welcomed by the audience. Her performance in "Little Kindness and Great Compassion" is especially famous. Xiaoci Temple is a fold in the whole kitchen knife. It is said that Cai Mingfeng, a young businessman, went out to do business and lived in a shop in Liu Fengying. Liu Fengying's husband is a gambler. He hangs around the casino all day, regardless of his family. Liu Fengying was extremely dissatisfied with her husband, but fell in love with Kwai Ming-feng, a loyal and honest customer, and they fell in love. But Kwai Ming-feng is going back to her hometown after all. They were heartbroken when they broke up. In the play, Liu Fengying learned that Kui Mingfeng still had a wife at home, so he decided to quit the shop and go home. On the occasion of parting, Yan Fengying expressed the heartbreaking grief of the characters with 320 tortuous and sad vocals, and the performance was powerful. During this period, Yan Fengying's performances, such as sending sweet tea, persuading an aunt to get married, meeting in the West Building, beating pig grass and love stories, all became popular repertoires.

After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Yan Fengying's artistic career faced a major turning point. During this period, Yan Fengying eliminated the repertoire, especially rehearsed new dramas such as Jianghan Fisherman's Song, Mulan Joining the Army, Two Big Red Flowers and Liu Jinmei Turning Over, which greatly improved and expanded the performance level, artistic norms and subject areas of Huangmei Opera.

At the end of 1955, the script was adapted by Sang Hu, directed by Shi Hui and starring Yan Fengying and Wang Shaofang. During this period, I don't know how many people have watched this film repeatedly. I wonder how many people are attracted by the plot in the play. I don't know how many people were fascinated by the outstanding performances of Yan Fengying and Wang Shaofang ... It can be said that the performance of The Fairy Couple set off a "Huangmei Opera fever" and "Yan Fengying fever" in China. Yan Fengying, who is in his twenties, suddenly became a favorite performing artist of millions of people.

After the match, the films "Female Xu" and "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" were also made into films and shown at home and abroad, which played a very good role in the spread of Huangmei Opera. During the "Cultural Revolution", Yan Fengying suffered wanton insults and personal destruction. She can't stand unprovoked attacks and refuses to give in to evil forces. 1On April 8th, 968, 37-year-old Yan Fengying committed suicide by taking drugs.

After the Cultural Revolution, people miss the artist who died young. In her hometown, Anqing, a white marble statue was built for Yan Fengying, so that this beautiful and kind "fairy" could remain in the world forever.

Fortunately, after ten years of catastrophe, Huangmei Opera not only did not decline or die out, but spread at home and abroad with a stronger momentum. In the new period of reform and opening up, Huangmei Opera has made great progress in talent, repertoire and performance style.

Huangmei opera talents are constantly emerging. Wang Shaofang and other artists of the older generation are still active on the stage, while a large number of newcomers such as Ma Lan, Wu Qiong, Han Zaifen, Chen Xiaofang, Jiang Lina, Ma Zijun, Huang Xinde, Wu Yaling, Jiang Jianguo, Li Zhou, Chen Zhaoshun, Yang Jun, Zhang Hui and Liu Hong have also quickly become the backbone of the stage. At the same time, while sorting out the traditional scripts, Huangmei Opera staged a large number of new plays with novel ideas and distinctive themes, such as Dream of Red Mansions, Yu Laosi and Zhang Ernv, Ke's Joining the Party, Unfaithful Love, Double Down the Mountain, Broken Coffin, Breaking the Door, Dragon Girl and Story of Rope. Among them, Dream of Red Mansions, Dangzu and Huizhou Women are the most influential.

A Dream of Red Mansions is a new drama presented by Anhui Huangmei Opera Theatre 199 1 This Dream of Red Mansions is different from previous performance books. It does not follow the pattern of love and marriage disputes among Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai, but focuses on Baoyu's personal situation, exposing the evils of feudal system and advocating the inevitability of personality liberation. Ma Lan is an actress, but this time she changed her daughter's attitude and played Jia Baoyu. Xiao Sheng's anti-cross-dressing performance brought Malan's art to a new peak. Kyle, the director of the play, said: "I don't think there has ever been a dream of red mansions with higher taste than this book." . "As the rehearsal approached, I cried for Baoyu all night and wrote more than 40 words." "The composer immediately created music" ... The performance of "Dream of Red Mansions" achieved Huangmei Opera to a higher level, and established Malan's pivotal position in the industry.

In the late 1990s, Malan's Swing Up and Han Zaifen's Huizhou Women attracted attention and controversy.

A Thousand Swords with a Wave is a play tailored by a famous scholar for his wife, Huangmei Opera artist Malan. This is a legendary story derived from the ancient imperial examination in China. It tells the story of a talented woman, Chu Yun, disguised as a man to participate in scientific research. She tried many times and won the first prize. The emperor decided to marry his daughter to Chu Yun. Just when Chu Yun was helpless, another person entered the palace to rescue him. Chihiro and Chu Yun were sentenced to death for cheating the monarch. Facing death, Chihiro and Chu Yun held an engagement ceremony. This touched the princess who was already angry. The three young people exchanged heart songs and hugged each other tightly, which ended in a comedy. In this story, the imperial examination has become a child's play, it is just the handrail of the story, and the trend of the story is a symbolic swing.

As soon as "Swing Up" appeared, people inside and outside the industry paid close attention to it. Applause and criticism coexist.

Wang Changan, an Anhui drama theorist, once wrote an article praising the Swing and said:

The feudal imperial examination system is the sorrow of China's old culture. It stifles nature, life and human creativity. However, it is their "only choice" to bring scholars and countless students to grind out the iron inkstone to take the exam. This will inevitably lead to a huge contradiction between the romance of life and the rigidity of reality. Chu Yun, a woman who used to swing, felt the beauty of life and the value of freedom under the swing, and felt the meaning of independent ups and downs. And all this must be obtained in a "play" way. Only by "playing" can a person truly become himself and become an extraordinary "fairy" that marks his ideal personality.

So, she used "play" instead of her father to complete the provincial exam. As a result, what she got was not the satisfaction of success and the joy of honor when she won the first place in the provincial examination, but the pleasure of playing with herself and tasting the sweetness of freedom. It turns out that all seemingly sacred things can be naughty. When she made a lifelong engagement with Chihiro privately, the token she gave her lover was not Yu Pei, a sweat towel or poetry, but a fruit. This is her concern for life and her reservation for nature. She hopes not only herself, but also her loved ones, in this society where people want to cross the river and eat people ethically, to keep more nature and leave some space for themselves, even in a cage. This kind of freedom and nature cannot be obtained by self-denial and orthodox culture. Only by exerting and releasing your own nature can you win.

A swing swings out helpless choices; A joke shows a kind of ups and downs of joy. The contradiction between nature and orthodox culture will exist for a long time. The progress of human civilization will eventually provide us with more choices, realize the unity of digestion and happiness, and will inevitably replace natural Shan Ye with natural socialization.

Swing weaves a fairy tale; "Swing" shows a fable; "Swing" allows us to look at the world with a new feeling and appreciate the past with a new mood. ...

Xie Xizhang, a senior literary critic of Beijing Evening News, analyzed and criticized the play. He said:

Whether it is appropriate to simplify people's life experience into "swinging" remains to be discussed. If it is only to express such a little meaning, Professor Yu can write an essay, and there is no need to waste people and money on a big play. Since it is a drama, what the stage presents should be much more important than the ideas it wants to elaborate. The exploration of the modernization of traditional Chinese opera has been going on for many years. A very important fact is that the way out for China's traditional operas is by no means a modern interpretation of traditional texts.

In fact, Malan didn't get a good play in this play. The main reason is that the unwilling loneliness is inappropriately highlighted in the foreground. The preposition of culture, which should be the background, often makes what is presented on the stage seem a bit erratic and embarrassing. For example, in the wedding night, a young lady and a princess are allowed to talk about "what is a woman", and a pair of young men and women who love each other will talk about the value of life on the execution ground, and then a "execution ground wedding" will be staged. This modern interpretation of traditional texts is obviously subjective and arbitrary, which is difficult to get the recognition of opera audiences and even destroys the rationality of narration.

Different from Swing Up, the style of Huizhou Women performed by Anqing Huangmei Opera Troupe is completely different. Huizhou Women is starring Huangmei Opera artist Han Zaifen. Through a woman's four processes of "marriage", "longing", "singing" and "return", the story shows the life tragedy of the lowest-class women in feudal society. The printmaking-like stage art, innovative directing techniques and Han Zaifen's vivid and outstanding performance have made Huizhou women change the traditional Huangmei Opera style from small and agile, brisk and joyful to profound and dignified, tear-jerking and thought-provoking, which has strong artistic shock. Commentator Tang Yue wrote an article in Drama Film Newspaper-Liyuan Weekly with the title "Singing high is not necessarily low". This is what he said:

The protagonist on the stage of Huangmei Opera was originally occupied by "Little Jasper", while "Huizhou Woman" grandly presented a "good family" in the figure gallery of Huangmei Opera. Xiaojiabiyu is light and beautiful, frank and lively, and has many similarities with popular opera. The dignity of a good family is a kind of scenery, which is no different from a "small jasper". But if there is more connotation in the dignified and steady image, it is the improvement of taste. Huizhou women are really women with rich connotations. Her long life, which is as light as water and floating like a cloud, slowly extends, including a profound experience of loneliness and confusion, an incisive interpretation of love without hate and regret, unremitting pursuit of life belief and life value, and strong and deep human strength.

Criticism of Huizhou women focuses on the dramatic image and ignores the dramatic noumenon, that is, "singing and dancing are stories". Especially in the last scene of the whole play, the main character doesn't even have a lyric. What is incomprehensible is that the crew also deliberately used "no singing" to enjoy it. This obviously violates the aesthetic characteristics of China's traditional operas, which are "silent, silent, motionless and non-dancing". People can say that "Huizhou women are a good play", but it is hard for people to say that "Huizhou women are a Huangmei opera." Because it is not a drama without singing, and it is not a Huangmei opera without singing Huangmei tune. This is the basic feature of immobility.

Of course, people, including those who hold critical opinions, have a high overall "score" on Huizhou women.

Like many traditional operas, Huangmei Opera faces many difficulties in its survival and development in the new century. Many problems need to be solved urgently, such as the reform of troupe, the inheritance and innovation of repertoire, the cultivation of top-notch young talents, the development of opera market, the loss and protection of famous talents. To create a better tomorrow, Huangmei Opera still has a lot of work to do.

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