What are the plays that are popular in various places called?

The plays that are popular in various places are called "types of plays".

Literally, the word "genre" means a type of theater. Since "drama type" is actually being used as a term for opera, it should have meant the type of opera. However, this is not the case in reality. In practice, the many popular local operas that are called "types" often do not have distinctive artistic characteristics.

The fact that they are called different types of opera is often a result of the names that have appeared in history, and most of them are the result of customary practices, not the result of an in-depth study of categorized names. For example, the Qinqiang, Xifu Qinqiang, and Tongzhou Bangzi are three types of theater in Shaanxi, and the differences between them are mainly in their artistic styles, with little difference in their singing and music.

The Qinqiang, Xifu Qinqiang and Tongzhou Bangzi were originally three of the four Qinqiangs, namely, the Middle Qinqiang, which was popular in the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi, with Xi'an as the center, the West Qinqiang, which was popular in the western part of Guanzhong, and the East Qinqiang, which was popular in the eastern part of Guanzhong. The Middle Road Qinqiang was once also known as "Xi'an Chaos Bomb". During the Republic of China (R.O.C.) period, the Xi'an Improvement Theater Company "Yichunsha" was founded in Xi'an to reform the Xi'an Chaoban, and formed the "Improvement New Sound" which was different from the West Road and East Road Qinqiang.

The West Road began to decline, and the East Road was called the "old Qinqiang" in comparison. The biggest difference between the three is that they were once mainly popular in the central, western, and eastern parts of Guanzhong, Shaanxi, respectively. However, since the dialects of the three popular regions are the same, all speaking the "Guanzhong dialect", there is not much difference in their singing voices. But for a long time they have been called three kinds of theater.

Because most of them were formed before the 1950s and are part of China's traditional theater culture, the theater genres are largely a historical and cultural phenomenon. At the same time, since most of the plays are popular in different regions, are sung in dialects and have obvious regional characteristics, so it is also to a large extent a regional cultural phenomenon. For this reason, people often refer to plays other than Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera as "local theater".

How to categorize the many types of opera that are popular in different places is a complicated issue. From the point of view of the type of theater, the popular local operas can be divided into two types: big and small operas. From the point of view of music, especially the singing cadences of the opera types in different places, the operas can be divided into many types of operas. At the same time, according to the historical origin of the singing cadence, there is also the term "opera voice" will be the same source of the same kind of theater into the same kind of voice, such as clapper chamber, Pihuang cavity, and so on.

Species of opera, as a theatrical and cultural phenomenon, originally had nothing to do with administration and politics. However, as many of them are popular in specific regions, they have more obvious regional characteristics. At the same time, due to the strict household registration and administrative management that began in the 1950s, opera troupes and opera artists were managed by party and government departments at all levels in their localities.

Through the management of troupes singing different types of operas, the types of operas were in fact placed under the management of the party and government departments at all levels in the places where they were popular, and to a certain extent, they also became the objects of management and administrative and cultural resources of the party and government departments at all levels in each place. How to treat and manage the theater types has naturally become part of the theater work of the party and government departments at all levels.

The best example of the management of opera genres by party and government departments at all levels is that in the 1950s and 1960s, some regions that did not have any locally formed opera genres created a number of new ones according to the instructions of their leaders. For example, the Ji Opera, Xincheng Opera and Huanglong Opera of Jilin, the Longjiang Opera and Longbin Opera of Heilongjiang were all created according to the instructions of the provincial party committees, while the Xia Opera of Ningxia, which was first created in the 1950s and finally formed in the 1980s, is probably one of the last to be formed.

According to various authoritative tools, we **** have more than 300 types of theater. But this number is watered down. First of all, as early as the 1950s, some of the theater types were already in name only and actually no longer exist. Secondly, some of them have no obvious difference in music and singing voice, but they are called different types of dramas because they are popular in different provinces or counties.

According to the author's statistics on the entries of opera genres in the earlier published Dictionary of Chinese Opera and Songcraft, there are 243 entries of opera genres (not counting the duplicated entries). The "Handbook of Chinese Opera Varieties", which was edited and published a little later, introduced 267 varieties of operas in text. In addition, there is a "table of local and foreign opera styles in each province, city and autonomous region "*** listing 360 local styles.

This is by far the earliest publication of the largest number of types of operas listed in the toolkit, and may also be the earliest source of the 360 types of operas we often hear about. But this data is actually problematic. After checking the data, I found that the 360 opera genres listed in the table actually include the long-lost Southern Opera, as well as the Haiyan and Yuyao operas. There are also a few other lost theater genres.

Relatively speaking, the number of Chinese opera genres included in the "Encyclopedia of Chinese Opera? In contrast, the "Table of Chinese Opera Varieties" in the volume of "Chinese Opera and Music" is more objective, in which 317 opera varieties are listed. Regarding the number of opera varieties, several "big books" published in the 1990s cannot be ignored. One is the "Dictionary of Chinese Opera Varieties", which includes 335 opera varieties.

The other is more authoritative "Chinese opera" series. The book is divided into 30 volumes according to provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the Central Government, each volume of the popular in the provinces (autonomous regions or municipalities) of the popular opera varieties, adding up to 368 kinds of **** (remove the popular across the provinces and regions and was duplicated by the volume of the varieties of the income). There is another kind of "Chinese Opera Music Integration" which mainly contains the music scores of various types of operas, and it is also 30 volumes, in which **** the music scores of 302 types of operas are included (excluding the types of operas which are duplicated and included in multiple volumes due to their popularity in cross-provinces and regions).

The ones listed above are authoritative opera tools, but the data about the number of opera genres are so different. It is difficult for us to know exactly how many types of opera there are from the above books. In other words, how many varieties of opera are there is actually a rather vague and doubtful question. What we need to find out urgently, or more importantly, is: how many varieties of opera are there now? I am afraid that this is a much more important question for the preservation and development of opera as a traditional culture.

Since the 1950s, with the great changes in social life, the number of the many types of operas, which are one of the important features of traditional Chinese theater, has indeed become less and less. This is an inevitable change in the process of transformation from traditional to modern society, something that cannot be helped. What we urgently need to know now is how many types of theater we still have left? Of course, if there are reliable statistics, we can also see how the number of theater types has changed over the changing times.

That would certainly be very meaningful data. But unfortunately, from the several authoritative opera tools mentioned above, instead of seeing the fact that the number of opera genres is decreasing, which we can actually all feel, we can form the opposite illusion? The number of opera genres has increased! Because the data provided to us by the aforementioned books do.

It should be noted that how to count the opera varieties is a more complicated issue. To begin with, identifying the play types is a cumbersome problem. But it seems that we should not continue to be subjected to the conventions agreed upon in the identification of opera genres, and strive to make a difference in the relevant academic research.

Because the conventions have already caused us some problems, and will mislead readers outside the opera world who wish to know more about the issue of opera types. To take a step back, if we are limited to the complexity of the issue can not provide readers with accurate information, at least we should tell readers the complexity of the issue. For example, just to take the author's opinion that it is more in line with the actual situation of opera genres, the Encyclopedia of China? Opera and music" volume of "Chinese opera drama table" listed in the drama, the table total **** listed 22 kinds of rice-planting opera, of which only Shanxi Province, there are 16 kinds.

The table also lists 18 kinds of tea ceremony, of which 12 kinds in Jiangxi Province. There are also 18 kinds of flower-drum operas in the table, including 7 kinds in Hubei and 6 kinds in Hunan. We know that Yangge opera and tea-picking opera are not strictly classified as art and music, and the cadences sung by various Yangge and tea-picking operas are often varied. However, the Yangge opera or tea-picking opera in the same province, especially in the same dialect area, often have the same characteristics in terms of historical origin and cadence.

In comparison, there are not many dialects in Shanxi, mainly the Jin language, represented by Taiyuan, which is popular in central and northern Jin, and the Guanzhong language, represented by Xi'an, which is popular in southern Jin. Are the 16 types of Yangge opera within Shanxi so different in terms of their singing tunes and singing voices that they must be regarded as separate and distinct genres? [9] Jiangxi has a relatively large number of dialects, in addition to the Gan dialect, there are also Hakka dialect, Wu dialect and Jianghuai official language, but is there the existence of 12 types of tea-planting operas? These are in fact worth studying, need to solve the academic problem, it is not appropriate to convention to replace the study of opera varieties.