Cantonese Opera Culture - How Many Lines are there in Cantonese Opera?

Whether it is a modern TV series and movies or musicals, stage plays and so on, these are the ancient operas and dramas simplified to the world stage, the modern drama must be played within the good guy, bad guy, villain and so on the category, and in the theater this is divided into different lines.

So, this issue of Cantonese Opera culture together to understand how many lines of Cantonese Opera.

The development of Cantonese opera performing arts is from simple to complex; initially, there are only three categories, namely, the end, the Dan, and the net, and then gradually derived to the top ten; the art of performing arts is in line with the overall performance characteristics of the typology of opera art. In recent times, the performing art of opera has shown a tendency to move closer to the personalization of characters, and the line has been simplified from complexity to simplicity, and most of the local operas have taken the basic types of "Sheng, Dan, Pure, Last, and Clown". In the early days of Cantonese Opera, there were ten "big lines", such as "ten lines", including "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", "ten lines", and so on.

In traditional Cantonese opera performances, the troupe has strict rules about the roles to be played in the performance line, and the actors cannot change or transgress the rules after they have agreed to work in the line beforehand, or else they are considered to have broken the rules of the line, and have to be punished, and the worst ones can be dismissed from the theater line.

In the theater, if the role of the age of the span, from young to old, it is necessary to perform by a different line responsible for the role of different age groups.

For example, the role of Mu Guiying, in the "Mu Guiying downhill" is a young woman, played by the paste Dan (or flower Dan); to the "Yangmen female generals", people have reached middle age, it was changed by the Dan (or Qingyi) play. In addition, due to the identity of the role of the different before and after, the same must be played by different lines of performance to play respectively.

For example, if a character starts out as a commoner, or as a greenhorn, and then goes on to become a king, then the front of the character is a small warrior, and the back of the character is a chief warrior. Therefore, traditional Cantonese opera used to have different actors and actresses playing the same role. Since then, through the "six-pillar system", to the modern theater troupe to play the main situation, the Cantonese opera performances of the line of consciousness gradually faded.

The roles within a drama are known as "lineage" in Cantonese opera and Chinese opera. The above is just a common name, the division can be more detailed.

After streamlining the six-pillar system, that is, Wen Wu Sheng, Xiao Sheng, Zheng Yin Hua Dan, the second gang Hua Dan, ugly Sheng, Wu Sheng. These are categorized according to the character's age, gender, personality, appearance and other characteristics. The term "Mou" stands for older characters. "Sheng" represents male characters. "Dan" represents female characters. "Pure" is a male character with a strong and violent personality. "Chou" is the comic character.

The make-up for a pure character (such as Zhang He) is known in the industry as "opening the face". First, use white pigment to trace the base, paint black near the eyes and mouth, paint the eyebrows long and upward to show the majesty, and then paint the rest of the face red to complete the whole process of "open face". The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots.

Clowns often have a big white spot in the center of the face. In fact, the makeup colors are mainly red, black, white, blue and yellow. Red represents blood loyalty and courage, black represents rigidity and loyalty, white represents treachery and insidiousness, blue represents arrogance and ferocity, and yellow represents plagiarism and competence.

Different lines require different costumes. For example: Xiao Sheng usually plays a civilized role, sometimes flinging sleeves, so the long sleeve called Wen sleeve. Xiao Wu need to fight, short sleeves to facilitate the actor's movements, so the short sleeve is also called martial arts sleeve. Therefore, the Wen Wu Sheng (Xiao Wu plus Xiao Sheng) costume will appear Wen Wu sleeve.

Basically all flower girl need headdress, which piece of stone is a flower girl must use. There are many types of headdresses, with different materials. Princesses and princesses wearing headdresses also have a phoenix and phoenix crown points. On the piece requires special equipment, basic techniques and skills, and the use of pieces to improve the shape of the face and make the piece of solid facial skills.

In fact, male characters also have headgear to wear, but not much, such as the Prince helmet and so on. In the Dream of the Red Chamber, Jia Baoyu and Cao Zijian in the God of Love are wearing the Prince's Helmet. According to "The Pearly Garden of Hong Kong: Cantonese Opera Literary and Martial Artists Luo Jiaying", the Prince's Helmet, also known as the "Purple and Gold Crown", was worn by the Prince or young generals. The top of the crown for the cloud dragon swallowing the pearl pattern, plus a large red ball tassel, inserted pheasant tail is the main general of the army.

Conclusion There are many different classifications of opera actors, each with their own side of the hand, just as often play the bad guy is very suitable to play the bad guy. The different classifications of opera actors are each very distinctive.