Cultural Information of Cantonese Opera

Cantonese Opera, also known as Tai Opera or Cantonese Opera, is a performing art that combines singing, acting, reading and playing, music, stage costumes and abstract forms. Cantonese opera originated from the Southern Opera, which began to appear in Guangdong and Guangxi during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. Each line of Cantonese Opera has its own distinctive costumes. The original language of performance was the Central Plains dialect, also known as the official dialect of the opera house. Towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, the culturists changed the language of performance to Cantonese to make it easier for the people of Guangzhou to understand the revolution. Cantonese opera is on the May 20, 2006 list of the first 518 national intangible cultural heritages. Roles: The roles in Cantonese Opera were originally organized into ten major roles, namely, the "Last Role", the "Sheng", the "Dan", the "Jing", the "Chou", the "Wai", the "Xiao", the "Fou", the "Sticky", and the "Miscellaneous" roles. Later on, it was streamlined into the six-pillar system, i.e. "Sheng Wenwusheng", "Xiao Sheng", "Zheng Yin Hua Dan", "Er Gang Hua Dan", "Chou Sheng" and "Wu Sheng". These are categorized according to the character's age, gender, personality and appearance. The "Last" represents the old characters. "Sheng" represents male characters. "Dan" represents female characters. "Pure" is a male character with a strong *** agitation. "Chou" is a funny character. Singing: "Singing" refers to the singing ability, which is different for different characters, including flat throat and sub-throat. Flat larynx is the voice tone of normal speech. The sub-throat is an octave higher than the sub-throat. The loud voice is a rough voice. Meanwhile, Cantonese Opera absorbs the unique singing styles of different places, such as the Guangdong Nan Yin and Mu Yu from Fujian, and the local folk songs of Guangdong, such as Yue Acura and Banyan. "Doing" refers to performing. It includes hand gestures, stage steps, walking positions, eye movements, hand movements, stances, water sleeves, plume work, water hair, abstract performances and traditional kung fu, and so on. "Nen" means to read out the lines. It is used to explain the plot, the thoughts and feelings of the characters. "Fighting" refers to martial arts, e.g. dancing with water sleeves, water hair, playing with fans, wielding swords and spears, playing with sticks and batons, dancing with flags, etc. Music: Cantonese opera music is mainly divided into three types, namely, the plate cadence, the song plate and the ballad. The local opera music of Guangdong should be mainly composed of the rap songs such as Nanyin, Muyu, Longboat, Banye, Yue Acura, etc., because this is based on the linguistic characteristics of the Cantonese language. On the basis of the division of the language into level and tone, and the division of sentences into up and down, the Cantonese rap songs have to be divided into two groups of up and down sentences, because the Cantonese language is divided into yin and yang, which is different from that of the northern languages, and there is a big difference in the phonetics. The basic feature of Cantonese Opera's singing music is the plate cadence, i.e. the clappers and erhuang, commonly known as "banghuang", which is similar to the "pihuang" of Peking Opera. Therefore, Cantonese Opera belongs to the North and South Roads of Opera, i.e. there are the "erhuang" cadence of the Southern Road and the clapper cadence of the Northern Road. Originally imported from the provinces, the Cantonese Opera's panchang style was developed from the qiyan rolling style of poems and hymns, and later on, the drums were added to the panchang style, leading to changes in the singing style, hence the name "panchang style". The most fundamental difference between the Banchang and Shizan styles of opera singing and the Quqiang style is that the Banchang and Shizan styles do not have a fixed musical melody. The melody is determined by the voice of the lyrics of the song, so even if they are the same as the "slow tempo" or the "medium tempo", they can have different melodies due to the different lyrics of the song. In contrast, the tune-based opera singing has a melody first, and then the lyrics are filled in, and the backbone of the tune cannot be modified. Therefore, no matter there are hundreds of tunes with the same tune, even if the lyrics are different, the tones must be the same, or else it is not the same as filling in a small piece of music. Cantonese Opera can be categorized into many types of tunes, among which there are mainly Kunyi tunes, i.e. traditional opera tunes, such as "My Six Countries" (i.e. "*** Flower"), "The Fluke Order", "Good Garden", etc. The Cantonese Opera is also composed of folk songs, such as "The Blessing of the Garden". Cantonese Opera has its own variations of folk songs, such as "Misty" and "Goat on the Hill" from the Kun Opera play "Sifan", which were originally folk songs but were introduced into Cantonese Opera after Kun Opera had transformed them into Cantonese Opera. There are ancient scores, such as "Autumn Thoughts on a Cosmetic Table"; however, there are some special ancient scores, such as "Drunkenness of the Concubine" produced in the Ming Dynasty, which was originally a "Western Palace Lyrics", and was introduced into Cantonese Opera during the period of origin of Cantonese Opera, unlike "Autumn Thoughts on a Cosmetic Table", which was absorbed into Cantonese Opera in the middle of the twentieth century. The most special ones are the folk ditties, such as "Parasitic Grass", "Cleaning the Street" (i.e. "Playing the Jujube Pole") and "Cutting the Indigo Flowers" (i.e. "Cutting the Indigo Flowers"), which were originally folk songs in Qiyan language, like the Panchong, and have no fixed melodies, but are developed from the speech of the lyrics, with different melodies, which are limited by the sequential tones in a cyclical manner, like the "Shi Zi Sequence" and "Gong Zi Sequence" of the Panchong. However, when people in different regions forget the original way of singing, the melodies of these songs are fixed by a certain melody and become Xiaoqu, which is an important part of Cantonese opera music. In fact, there are still many folk songs of this kind in China, such as the Shanxi Kam's "Journey to the Heavenly Halls" and the North's "Sunny Day". Customs and Terminology Origin of the Lei Garden: Emperor Li Longji of the Tang Dynasty loved to sing and dance at an early age, and at the age of six, he performed the song and dance show "Long-lived Daughter" for his grandmother, Wu Zetian, in the palace courtyard. The performance was so good that it won the admiration of the royal relatives and ministers present. When Li Longji succeeded to the throne, he chose a pear orchard in the palace courtyard as the venue for rehearsals, which is the origin of the orchard. Since then, everyone in the theater has called themselves the children of the Pear Garden. Theater Bridge: The theater bridge is a leaflet given to the audience before the start of a play to introduce the play. It usually contains a brief description of the play, the writer, the director, the cast list and so on. Red Boat: At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Cantonese Opera troupes used to tour along the coast of Guangzhou, and for the convenience of their journey, they used to live on red boats. These troupes were called Red Boat Troupes. The allocation of berths and the duties of the workers on the red boat were regulated and became the basis of the opera troupe in the future. Generally speaking, Cantonese opera troupes are categorized into local troupes, foreign troupes, local and foreign troupes, and transient troupes. Bak Mok: Bak Mok means "improvisation", which can be interpreted as instant creation. It is an expression of the actor's feelings at the time of the performance, which is different from the script or has not been rehearsed. Bumping: A mistake in the beat or tempo of a piece being played or sung. Due to the popularity of Cantonese Opera among Hong Kong Chinese, the word "clash" has become a colloquialism to describe a "mistake". To avoid a corner: Because the theater was built on a temporary basis, there were many bamboo pillars in the auditorium, so the corners were called "corners". Some corners are called "corners". The corners are called "corners", which means to avoid the bamboo pillars obstructing the view. Za, Uncle: Calling the elders of the theater as "uncle". The word "扎" means to become famous or to be promoted. These two words are the same as the triad's black language. Because in the old society, Cantonese opera artists had to deal with the triads as they traveled around the world and sold their skills to make a living.

Reference: zh-yue. *** /wiki/%E7%B2%B5%E5%8A%87 & .geocities/musicproject_2001/