(Enter the masters!) Essays on Opera

One, the ancient Chinese opera article of the cognitive background of the revaluation of the value

In the poetry and literature as the orthodox concept of the ancient article of science, opera scripts often can not be entered into the category of "article", as the so-called "song in the text, the horizontal was rejected, to the grid on the right track outside, shall not be with the poetry and lyrics of the same section. As the saying goes, "the music of literature was rejected and was not allowed to be included in the same category as poetry and poetry. In the history of opera studies, people seldom study opera scripts with the concept of article studies. Then, in the study of opera culture and opera art has become the basic academic trend, and is on fire with the wind blazing time, put forward the value of the opera article science reassessment, seems to be inevitable thinking lagging behind the suspicion, but I thought that there is a great need to reassess.

First of all, the gradual decline of the performance of opera, resulting in the gradual loss of the value of the performing arts of opera, and when the performing arts from the historical "front stage" retreated into the archives of the history of art data, opera scripts will emerge as a more important value of the article.

The history of Chinese opera is, to a large extent, the history of opera performances, and it seems that there are performances before there are operas; the rise and fall of performances is also the rise and fall of operas. And for the judgment of opera scripts, is also whether the performance as an important standard, the so-called "fill in the words of the set, specifically for the debut". When the performance on the stage becomes the ultimate purpose and the highest value of the opera, the independent value of the opera script, or the value of the opera script as an article to be written and appreciated is relatively neglected.

However, since the end of the last century, the decline of opera performances has become a certainty. The possibility that opera could have been initiated in the specific cultural space of the theater has been lost, and the audience on which it depends has become more and more sparse. It is reported that "there are only 2,000 hardcore Cantonese opera fans in Guangzhou, which is comparable to the regular audience of Kunqu Opera, the 'living fossil' of opera, in Shanghai". If TV culture and traditional opera are singing "opposite", not only a large number of viewers are attracted to TV culture, but also the "revival" of opera in the struggling fantasy has to rely on TV media to go. The fantasy of the opera in the struggling "revival" also rely on the television media to "realize".

In such a cultural context, the value of the opera script will be particularly important. Because it is not only an important textual evidence for us to continue to imagine and recognize the history of the past opera, but also an article of independent value that can exist forever, or a work of opera literature. Even though we will still judge the value of the play by the idea that opera is a comprehensive art, the emotional consciousness, literary ideas, techniques and methods it contains in itself will release a wealth of valuable information when it is read and studied as an independent cultural carrier and literary text. From the present point of view, the performance of opera will not be extinct, and it is still being protected as cultural heritage, but how long it will last is still hard to predict. What can be predicted is that the theaters and audiences on which opera depends may plummet to the point of disappearance, while the scripts and future readers on which it must also depend will not disappear, and in the future people may shift more from watching and listening to opera to reading opera texts.

Secondly, under the impact of the trend of cultural globalization, the study of Chinese literature and art has become both featureless and lacking in its own creativity due to its excessive reliance on the interpretation and borrowing of Western literary and artistic thought, so it is of double significance to re-conceptualize the traditional literature and art and to build up a new literary and artistic thought of our own to comprehensively clean up and research on our traditional literary and artistic thought from different perspectives. The essayistic study of opera scripts, then, not only involves many aspects of opera studies, but also can provide an in-depth understanding of traditional literary thought from a special perspective.

Opera scripts, as a special kind of articles under the normative constraints of the performing arts, are both the most important basic materials for our study of the history of opera and an important virtue for our study of traditional ethno-literature. The scholars have organized a large number of scripts and carried out a lot of script interpretation and script evaluation, but there are not many independent researches on opera scripts from the point of view of essayism, and fewer researches on opera scripts as special literary works. The reason for this is naturally because in the traditional concept, people are mostly regarded the script as a part of the opera performance, so its independent existence value is questioned; and in the new academic trend of opera studies, people favor the all-round cultural interpretation of the opera, or even the remote connection, and tend to put the opera essayism, opera literature as a superficial study in the situation of great disdain.

In fact, in the ancient practice of opera writing, there were already quite a number of writers who broke through the constraints of the concept of "the song on the field" and wrote plays as special articles, such as Wang Shifu's "The Story of the Western Wing" and Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion". Because of this, they created opera scripts that could be both performed and read. A large number of desk plays that can only be read but not performed, such as some of the legends of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as a literary phenomenon, also has a special significance. In the ancient opera criticism, there have been some critics with the vision and intelligence of the article to comment and analyze the works of opera, such as Li Zhi, Jin Shengxuan, Li Yu and so on. The wisdom of essayism and literary thinking embodied in these two aspects are undoubtedly valuable to our understanding of the ancient Chinese literary thinking system and the construction of new nationalized literary thinking. For example, Li Yu put forward in his "Occasional Remarks on Idle Feelings" the concepts of "setting up a master mind", "getting out of the rut", "dense needles and threads", "reducing headaches", "expensive and expensive", and "the most important of all". "The purpose of these statements is not only to write opera as a piece for "readers, non-readers, and women and children" but also as a piece of music on the stage, and as a piece of theater for "readers, non-readers, and women and children". The purpose is to write the opera as a piece of music for "the readers, the non-readers and the women and children", and to write it as a "great article" among the celestial bodies. All of these are often borrowed and discussed in our literature and writing today.

Once again, today's television culture is facing some of the same problems that opera used to face, while squeezing out the huge cultural space that traditional opera used to have. For example, the relationship between the performance demand of TV dramas and the literary quality of TV dramas, and the problem of the appropriateness and cultural taste of TV dramas. The great defects shown by today's TV dramas in these aspects will sooner or later affect its artistic life as well. Therefore, further study of traditional drama essayism and drama literature can provide both a reference for the rise and fall of art and a different reference for success and failure.

It can be clearly argued that today's ancient opera adaptations and contemporary theatrical creations are in a difficult quest for revitalization, and that the fundamental reason for this difficulty is the lack of support from truly excellent literature; today's films and TV dramas are similarly lacking in support from excellent literature under the curtain of superficial prosperity. There are many reasons for such a lack, which will not be discussed here. But if the study of ancient opera essayism is taken as a reference and scientifically linked to today's theater, film, and TV drama literary issues, I believe that a clearer and deeper understanding can be provided.

In view of the above three reasons, our affirmation of the value of ancient opera essayism has a basic understanding of the premise.

Second, the essayistic writing and essayistic criticism of opera scripts

As mentioned earlier, the essayistic writing and essayistic criticism of opera is an objective existence in the history of opera.

While there are many opera writers who have turned their plays into "desk songs" and special "articles" that cannot be performed, thus affecting their own value, the best works in the history of opera are basically both blueprints that can be performed on the stage, as well as the blueprints that can be used in the theater, and also the blueprints that can be used in the theater that can be performed. However, the best works in the history of opera are basically both blueprints that can be performed on the stage and articles that can be read on the desk. More importantly, playwrights, when creating their works, take into account the artistic constraints imposed on their plays by stage performances, but also tend to consciously break through such constraints by treating opera scripts as articles of a special style. In other words, playwrights tend to integrate the artistic regulations of opera performance with the artistic spirit and creative ideas of traditional Chinese articles to create, and thus become excellent works, and even become literary classics.

The writing of ancient essays, as well as the criticism of essayism, attached great importance to the expression of the author's abundant spirit, which was often described by the concept of "qi". For example, Cao Pi has the most famous argument: "The text is dominated by qi, the qi of the clear and turbid body, can not be forced to achieve." Li Deyu of the Tang Dynasty also said, "Wen is a thing of natural aura. It comes in a trance without thinking." Under the influence of the spirit of traditional culture, outstanding opera writers have always used opera as an art form to express their frustration.

The most typical one is Wang Shifu's The West Wing. The reason why Li Zhi marveled at "The Story of the Western Wing" as "ancient and modern to the text" ("Burning Book - Children's Heart"), "the article to this point, even more no text to carry on" ("Mr. Li Zhuouo criticism of the Northern Western Wing" sixteenth out of the general approval), the reason is that its writing is entirely out of a piece of "Children's heart", a childlike spirit, as the saying goes, "read his text, the spirit is still in the text inside; read to the "West Wing" song, "Water Margin", will only see the spirit, and do not see the text. Huh, it's different!" ("Mr. Li Zhuo Wu criticism of the Northern Western Chamber" out of the twentieth and the whole play of the general approval) Hu Yinglin also said: "The Western Chamber" main rhyme degree of wind and spirit, Taibai's poetry." ("Shaorou Shanfang Pen Series - Zhuang Yue Committee Talk") to Jin Shengqan, in the "West Wing" and "Zhuangzi", "History" as "heaven and earth as a wonderful text" ("Guanhuatang Sixth Talent Book - Preface") for the comment, his biggest aesthetic excitement is also due to the spirit, spirit and momentum, not only the chapter, technique and text. The most aesthetic excitement is also due to the spirit, spirit and momentum of the book, not just the style, technique and words. The author's work is a masterpiece of the art of writing, and it is a masterpiece of the art of writing.

The "Journey to the West Wing" is so wonderful that it can be read as if you were standing on a hillock and facing an unpredictable stream.

The momentum created by the "free will" and the feeling of reading "like standing on a thousand square feet and facing an unpredictable stream" are in fact a thorough understanding of the spirit of "The Story of the Western Wing".

Interestingly enough, Li Yu said in his "Remarks on Lyrics", "What Shengqan commented on is that the literati play with 'The Western Wing', not the 'Western Wing' that the superior people play with. The three senses of words, Sheng-liang had already obtained; the three senses of the superior people's fiddling, Sheng-liang was still to be achieved." He thinks that Jin Shengxuan is right to comment on The Western Wing as an article, which is extremely clever, but he did not pay attention to the performative side of the opera, which is after all a kind of defect. This gives us a more comprehensive understanding of the thought of the opera article to draw on. And Li Yu also said in Idle Happenings - Abstinence from Satire: "Anyone who writes a biographical essay must first have a mind that can be passed on to the world, and then the ghosts and gods effect the spirit. ...... pass non-text pass, a thought of righteousness make pass also." It is on the basis of such a realization, he further believes that "fill in the word is not the last skill, is the same source with the history of poetry and literature and different schools."

Tang Xianzu even regarded the creation of opera as the creation of articles. He commented on Qiu Maobo's article in the "Preface to the Hatch", saying: "I say that the beauty of the article is not in the step between the similarity. The natural aura comes in a trance and arrives without thinking. Weird and strange, inexplicable ...... where heaven and earth strange and strange, high and ancient atmosphere, as well as in the editor." This so-called "thesis fast language", emphasizing that the article is the spirit of transcendence in the world. Because of this, he was in the discussion with Lv Tiancheng opera, "where the text to the interest of the color of the main" without "one by one Gu Jiugong four voices," the idea, and to "I want to, it may be difficult to bend the world's voice. " There is no doubt that without the spirit of Tang Xianzu's writing, there would be no "Peony Pavilion".

Not only that, Wang Gide emphasized in "The Laws of Song" that both lyrics and music and articles must have the same "spirit and standard rhyme", but also evaluated the playwrights with this concept. He said: "Mr. Xu Tianchi 'four apes', so it is a kind of strange words between heaven and earth. Mr. Xu Tianchi's "Four Sounds of Ape" is a strange text in heaven and earth. ...... Mr. Xu Tianchi has passed away, and he has become an ancient man in order to square with the ancients, and he can't be tied up in the real song, but Su Changgong's flow! Xu Fu-Jo "Qu" commented on the "Pipa": "The article to this point, really like nine days cough spit, not eat fireworks people can recognize." Gao Yi of the Qing Dynasty, "New Legendary Pieces" said in a summarizing tone.

"Legends in today, but also full. The author of the uninhibited talent, write the scene of the scene, but want to new people's ears and eyes, not confined to the text, do not know the pattern, not according to the Gongshang, not according to the sound rhyme, but can be easy to move the show, hair people sing and cry, enlightened people Yanmu, close to the feelings of common people, describing the living, show off the strange, can be practiced, and so on and so forth."

Gao Yi not only emphasized "easy to perform", but also advocated the release of talent, do not follow the rules, to promote the same is "obtained in the creation, flow in the text of the movement, dazzle the pen, hovering on the paper" of the article Qi Qi, the spirit of the article.

Although opera has strict performance procedures and artistic norms, it must also be a dynamic artistic creation. And the root of this creation is human, is the playwright skillful in the norms and not constrained by the norms of creation. Excellent playwrights will be brewed in the life of the great spirit, abundant spirit, into a dramatic story, into a beautiful lyrics, into a living bingbai, the real cause of the history of the opera brilliant.

Ming Dynasty Zhu Quan in the "Taihe Zhengyin谱" has the following words of praise:

Ma Dongli's words, such as the sunrise and the phoenix. His words are so elegant and clear that they can fly down with "Ling Guang" and "Jing Fu", and they have the meaning that the hyena is vibrating, and all the horses are mute. And if the phoenix soars in the sky, how can it talk to the mortal bird ****!

Bai Renfu's words, such as the roc wrestling the nine skies. The bones of the soul, the source of the word, if the roc of the north of the sea, the wings of the nine skies, there is a ten thousand miles of ambition, it is appropriate to crown in the first.

Zheng Dehui's words, such as the nine heavenly jewels. The words of Zheng Dehui are extraordinary; if he coughs up spit and falls in the nine heavens, and produces jewels and jades in the wind, it is a masterpiece.

These are similar to Zhong Rong's "Poetry" style of opera article evaluation, not a precise analysis, but let a person taste the spirit of those masterpieces in the abundance of the spirit of the masterpieces.

It can be said that the fundamental purpose of creating opera scripts with the spirit of articles, or criticizing opera scripts with the vision of essayism, is to elevate the literary and artistic values of opera, to make the scripts by virtue of which opera performances are more aesthetically pleasing to literature and artistically pleasing to performances, and to make the creation of opera scripts, which are repelled by orthodox articles, likewise become an " immortal event." immortal event."

The recent Yao Hua's "A Spoonful of the Sea of Songs" very prominently summarizes and emphasizes this article value of the opera. He said:

And the song is the article of the Yuan Dynasty, more than all the other styles, not only the fate of the world, but also the people's customs. In today's gloomy, will be annihilated. The northern tune of a few, the southern cavity dip micro, the syllables have been gradually lost its transmission, the article is also scattered and undocumented.

The song of the work also, the art of poetry and fugue, language rooted in the time, the material is not confined, put the words without fear, so the artifacts can shine, the heart of the hands of the double smooth, the words are close to the image of the pro. The first thing you need to do is to look at the remains of the book, and you will see that everyone is too busy, and everyone is too busy.

Yao Hua articulated three ideas that deserve attention: First, opera scripts are also articles, poetry and fugue articles with the evolution of the times and the derivation of the new article of the body; second, opera scripts as articles, its literary value "male in the body", beyond "since the Yuan and Ming authors of poetry and fugue"; third, opera scripts as articles, their literary value "male in the body", beyond "since the Yuan and Ming authors of Thirdly, the decline of modern opera is not only due to the fact that "the syllables have been gradually lost", but also due to the fact that "the articles are also scattered and undisciplined". In his understanding, the rise and fall of the opera article is related to the rise and fall of the opera itself, which is a concept that has been ignored. For example, when Dong said on "The Palace of Eternal Youth" in his "Five Famous Plays," he said:

Just "The Palace of Eternal Youth" is not a lyric, but a play, a drama performed on the stage, not a work for desktop reading only. That is to say, this play ("A Glimpse of the Bath") is an excellent piece of writing in any genre, but because it is a drama that must be performed on the stage, the effect on the audience is not great and is redundant.

From the point of view of performance and theater, Mr. Dong's argument is reasonable. But if it is "an excellent piece of writing in any genre," isn't that value in itself? This implies that the value of opera texts has been neglected under the concepts of performance and theater.

Of course, I don't think that writing opera purely in the sense of an essay or an essay is valuable. Those who show off their knowledge, pile up stereotypes, follow the obscure style of the article, and apply the method of article production into a mediocre work, neither can be performed, nor can they be read, but can only be regarded as a kind of literary history, the history of the opera when the study of the opposite material to prove.

The play that cannot be read or acted out is definitely not a good article;

The play that can only be read but not acted out is not necessarily not a good article:

The play that can be read with the soul in flight, and that can be viewed off-stage with the heart open, is definitely the most superior good article.

Third, the basic understanding of the content of the article of the opera

The opera scripts are regarded as articles to be written and criticized, which has actually formed some of the basic content of the article of the opera. In addition to the spirit of the article and other issues discussed above, we often see the traditional concept and method of article study and evaluation of opera scripts, which is a more specific aspect of the article study of opera.

Ming Dynasty Wang Ji De's "Laws of the Song" has a section on "On Chapter and Law", which talks about the structure of the drama, and it is directly changed by the traditional concept of chapter and law of the article used in the opera.

Ming dynasty qi biaojia's "far mountain hall song", "far mountain hall play", the opera scripts as poetry and literature, evaluation of its rhetoric, taste of the situation, with the use of the article of criticism.

And Mao Xihe, Jin Shengxuan and others used some concepts common to article criticism when commenting on Wang Shifu's The Story of the Western Chamber. For example, "the text has the momentum of jumping out of the way," "the method of the darkness is also", "the method of the extreme rows and swings", "the order of the chapters and laws ", "the chapter method is particularly wonderful", "the real yuan people make law of the Samadhi", "the article can be so extremely also" and so on. This more means that the intermingling of the opera evaluation and the traditional article evaluation. Therefore, Li Yu said that Jin Shengqan got "the text of the Samadhi", but not get "excellent people to move the Samadhi."

In fact, Li Yu, as an experienced and conscious writer and theorist of opera, also discusses opera with articles everywhere in Idle Remarks. However, he divided the whole discussion into two parts: the "Lyrics and Music Department" and the "Exercises Department," which dealt with the structure, diction, meter, bingbai, gags, and pattern of the opera, all of which were influenced by traditional essayistic criticism. The "Department of Lyrics and Songs" discusses structure, diction, meter, bingbai, gags, and pattern, and is not only influenced by the critical consciousness of traditional essayism, but also based on the artistic individuality of the operatic essay itself, thus laying down the basic content of traditional operatic essayism. It is especially important to note that in the first sentence of the "Department of Exercises", i.e. between the "Department of Lyrics and Songs" and the "Department of Exercises", he uses a transitional phrase that carries on from the previous to the next:

The first sentence of the "Department of Lyrics", which is the transition between the "Department of Lyrics" and the "Department of Exercises", uses a transitional phrase: "The setting of the lyrics is exclusively for the purpose of appearing on the stage", which makes his conception of operatic writings more closely related to the artistic requirements of the theater performance.

By the time Mr. Wang Guowei made his History of Song and Yuan Opera, there were several chapters on both "The Structure of Yuan Opera" and "The Essay of Yuan Opera" and "The Essay of Yuan Southern Opera".

But the best thing about the Yuan dynasty opera is not in its ideological structure, but in its articles. The article of the best, but also a word in a nutshell, said: write love is refreshing, write the scene is in the people's ears and eyes, tell the story is like its mouth is also. Ancient poetry of the best. All like this. Yuanqu is also the same.

Wang Guowei said "article" and only refers to the language of the opera, the structure of the article and other elements are not included. That's why he said: "Guan Hanqing a empty leaning side, self-casting great words, and its words of the song all the human feelings, word color, so it should be the first Yuan people." "The Yuan dynasty drama is superior to the literature of a generation in terms of articles." He follows the concept of the former that the article refers to the language and literature alone, but strengthens our understanding of the importance of language and literature in opera essayism, and strengthens our understanding of the relationship between the value of the opera article and the literature of the opera.

Summarizing the previous discussions on opera essayism, and further placing the study of opera essayism in today's broader vision of literature and art to think about, I think that the so-called content of opera essayism, in addition to those more superficial aspects, such as the theory of structure, language, methodology, style, and appreciation of the theory of the following aspects should be noted:

One of the following. Opera essayism is a practical way of thinking for us to recognize opera literature and opera art. That is to say, the rise and fall of opera is largely due to the rise and fall of opera literature. The key to the rise and fall of opera literature does not lie in the skillfulness or otherwise of the playwriting techniques, but in whether the writer has an outstanding conception of the article and literary consciousness when he writes the play, and whether he can carry out independent artistic creation in the opera article. The law embodied in the history of ancient opera can be extended to the history of contemporary opera, and we will get a more thorough understanding.

Secondly, the study of the stylistic characteristics and the evolution of the origin and flow of the opera script, as a form of writing or literature that is both subject to the constraints of the performing arts and artistically independent, is of special academic significance. In my narrow field of vision, it seems that I have not noticed any more research in this area. Then, whether it is from the overall evolution of the law, or in some details, such as the evolution of opera bingbai, the evolution of stage cues in the script, in-depth study, and to extend the research vision to the contemporary adaptation of traditional opera, are of certain academic significance. Recently, I read Mr. Guo Weiting's The Art of Gagging in Yuan Miscellaneous Operas, which explores the use of gags and techniques, dramatic functions, and literary qualities, traces their origins to the past, and discusses their influence on future generations of operas, which can also be regarded as a scholarly attempt to do so.

Third, the study of opera narrative. If the opera is regarded as an art of performing stories in the form of songs and dances, then songs and dances, singing, doing, reading and playing are only forms of performance, and the story is the backbone of the opera, the fundamental opera. So, what kind of story? How is the story performed? Depends on the narrative of the script. There are many theorists of opera, such as Li Yu, Wu Mei, the present Tan Peisheng, etc. have done research on this, but the opera script as a kind of performance narrative, from the perspective of the narratology of a wide range of in-depth research, seems to need to be strengthened.

So, in this paper, I especially put forward the idea of the article of the opera, and advocate the study of the article of the opera.