What are the style characteristics of Huangmei Opera?

The artistic features of Huangmei Opera;

The aria of Huangmei Opera belongs to plate variation, which has three major cavity systems: coloratura, coloratura and main melody. Coloratura mainly plays a small play, with healthy and simple tunes, beautiful and cheerful, and a strong flavor of life and folk songs. Multicolored tunes are cheerful and have been widely used in colorful operas. Huangmei Opera is a traditional theme in the original drama, which is divided into Pinghua, Huogong, two lines and three lines. Among them, Pinghua is the most important aria in the original work, and its tunes are solemn, graceful and generous.

Huangmei Opera is famous for its strong lyricism, rich charm, simple and fresh singing, delicate and touching, lively and lyrical, rich expressive force and easy to understand, and is deeply loved by people everywhere. In terms of music accompaniment, in the early Huangmei Opera, three people played percussion instruments such as drums, cymbals, small gongs and big gongs at the same time and participated in the entertainment, which was called "three strikes and seven sings". After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Huangmei Opera formally established an accompaniment system with Gao Hu as the main instrument.

Huangmei opera is euphemistic and fresh, which can be divided into two categories: coloratura and Pingci. Coloratura is mainly used to perform small plays, full of rich flavor of life and folk songs, and uses "household house", "food que" and other "lining words". There are lovers watching lights, blue bridge meeting, and beating pig grass. Pingci is the most important aria in the original drama, which is often used for long narrative and lyric. It sounds euphemistic and melodious, including butterfly lovers and Fairy Couple.

Modern Huangmei Opera enhances the expressive force of "Pingci" singing in music. Pingci is often used for lyric and narrative, and is the main singing of the original drama. It broke through the limitations of some "coloratura" special play, absorbed the musical elements such as folk songs, and created a new cavity that was integrated with traditional singing. Huangmei Opera, with Gao Hu as the main accompaniment instrument, supplemented by other national musical instruments and gongs and drums, is suitable for performing plays with various themes.

Development history of Huangmei opera

The development history of Huangmei Opera can be roughly divided into three stages:

The first stage, from the last years of Qing Qianlong to around the Revolution of 1911. Huangmei Tea Picking Tune, Jiangxi Tune, Tongcheng Tune and Fengyang Tune, which originated and spread in Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi, were influenced by local operas (Qingyang Tune and Huizhou Tune) and combined with folk arts such as Lianxiang, stilts and dry boats, and gradually formed some operas. Further development, it absorbed the performance content and forms of folk art form "Luohanzhuang" and Qingyang tune and Huizhou tune, thus producing a complete story.

There is also a transitional form from small drama to this kind of drama, which is called "string drama" by old artists. The so-called "string play" is a group of independent and interrelated dramas, some of which are "string" by events and some are "string" by people. The story of "cross-dressing" is richer than that of a small play, and the characters appear in it have also broken through three small areas: Clown, Xiao Dan and Xiao Sheng. Some old roles need to be played by Zheng Dan, Lao Sheng and Lao Ugly. This created conditions for the production of this play.

The period from Kangxi, Qianlong to Guangxu in Qing Dynasty was an important historical stage for the formation and development of "Three Strings and Seven Singing". At this stage, the accumulation of traditional plays, aria and performing arts and the wide spread of traditional operas have been fully practiced. During this period, the traditional repertoire was very rich, and artists could perform more than 200 kinds of dramas and operas, commonly known as "Big Ben 36, ditty 72". Many of them are based on the true story of Huangmei, such as Gao Jingcheng, Gao Bafei, Mercy and Compassion, Crossing the Boundary Ridge.

In terms of repertoire, it is known as "36 major dramas, 72% off small dramas". The play mainly shows the people's dissatisfaction with class oppression, the disparity between the rich and the poor and their yearning for a free and beautiful life. For example, The Story of Buckwheat, Guan, Tian Xianpei, etc. Traditional Chinese operas mostly show the life segments of rural laborers, such as ordering barley, spinning cotton yarn and selling buckets.

The second stage is from the Revolution of 1911 to 1949. At this stage, Huangmei Opera gradually moved towards professionalism, and stepped onto the urban stage from the rural grass-roots team. After Huangmei Opera entered the city, it was combined with Beijing Opera, and was influenced by Yue Opera, Yang Opera, Huai Opera and Pingju Opera from the north in Shanghai. Great changes have taken place in the performance content and form.

A number of new plays have been directed and transplanted, including series such as Wen, Hong Bi Yuan, Gorgeous Garden and The Tale of Bees. In music, the traditional singing method has been reformed, which reduces the empty talk in the old cavity, makes it bright and smooth, and makes the audience easy to understand the singing content. Cancel the help and try to accompany Hu Qin.

In terms of performance, it absorbed and integrated the procedural movements of Peking Opera and other brother operas, enriching the means of expression. Others, such as clothing, make-up, stage setting, etc., have also developed compared with the grass platform in rural areas.

The third stage is 1949. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Huangmei Opera was rapidly restored and developed. 1953 Anhui Huangmei Opera Troupe was established in Hefei. Thirteen counties in Anqing area have also established professional theatrical troupes; 1954 Huangmei Opera "Fairy Match" participated in the East China Opera Observation and Performance Conference and was a success. The play was also made into a film for the second time, which caused a sensation at home and abroad. A number of newly created and adapted outstanding plays, such as Female Ma Xu, Shazigang and Burning Ziyunge, have been staged one after another.

During this period, Huangmei Opera also influenced many other provinces, such as Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jilin and Tibet, and Huangmei Opera Troupe was established one after another. Huangmei Opera, sung in Mandarin and Cantonese, also appeared in Hong Kong and Macau. In the performing arts, through rehearsing new plays and shooting movies, the performance forms of plays and movies have been absorbed, and new development has been made in characterization.

In the decades after liberation, Huangmei Opera produced a large number of outstanding actors. Besides Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang and other artists of the older generation have made outstanding contributions to the singing art of Huangmei Opera, young and middle-aged actors such as Ma Lan and Han Zaifen have also demonstrated superb acting skills on stage, screen and TV screen, winning the attention and love of the audience.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia Huangmei opera