What is the music of Teochew?

Chaoshan Opera, also known as Chiu Chow Opera, Chiu Yin Opera, Chiu Tune, and Bai Zi Opera, is mainly popular in the Chiu Chow dialect area, and is an ancient local opera genre sung in the Chiu Chow dialect. It is mainly distributed in eastern Guangdong, southern Fujian, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

The formation and development of Chaozhou opera has a history of more than 430 years. It is an offshoot of the Southern Opera of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, which gradually evolved from the Southern Opera of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, absorbing the specialties of Goyang, Kunqu, Pihuang, and Bangkang Operas, and combining them with local folk arts, such as the music of Teochew, to ultimately form its own unique art form and style.

The language of Teochew opera did not begin with the Teochew dialect. As can be seen from the Ming book "The Complete Collection of Golden Flower Women of the Plucked Kam Chiu Tune", Chiu Chow opera at this time was mainly sung in the Chiu Chow dialect, but some of the singing and speech in some of the scenes were marked as being sung in the "correct tone" (i.e., the "official tone"), which suggests that Chiu Chow opera, in the process of evolution from the Southern Opera, started with the use of the "official tone", and then gradually reduced the proportion of the "official tone" to the end of the localization of the whole.

Second, the history of development

The Chiu Yin class is popular in the eastern part of Guangdong Province, southern Fujian Province, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

The Chiu Chow Opera is a local opera sung in the Chiu Chow dialect after the Southern Opera of the Song and Yuan dynasties spread to the Chiu Chow area in eastern Guangdong, melting and absorbing the music of Chiu Chow as well as other folk arts of Chiu Chow. In the Ming Dynasty, Dai Jing wrote in the Preliminary Draft of Guangdong Tongzhi, Volume 18, "Customs", that "Teochew customarily carries out operas and texts in the local dialect." In the early Qing Dynasty, Qu Dajun wrote in Guangdong New Words, "The Teochew people sang north and south songs in their native voices and called it Teochew Opera." In 1958 in Jieyang in the Ming tombs unearthed, sung in the Teochew dialect of the codex "Cai Bo皆" and in 1975, Teochew digging west of Shanxi in Fengtang Helong construction of the Ming tombs unearthed in the Ming Xuande codex "Liu Xibi Hairpin", is the Ming Dynasty, the Teochew people to play the theater in the native voice of the cultural heritage to support the text.

Three, artistic characteristics

1, the role

Chaosi opera line is complete, raw, Dan, pure, ugly each should be the work of the first play, the performance of delicate and vivid, body work both rigorous program specifications, but also rich in writing, focusing on the play of skills, which is particularly rich in clown line and the flower Dan's performing arts, with a unique style and local color.

From the point of view of performance, Chaozhou Opera has the most local characteristics of the footwork of Sheng, Dan and Chou. Sheng Dan's play "Window Sweeper" is regarded as a typical representative of Chinese opera that uses song and dance to act out stories; Teochew opera's clowns are divided into ten categories, among which Xiangshang Clown's fan work is famous in the north and south and is known to the world. In the old clown opera "Chai Fang Hui", the clown's sliding ladder work is unique to Chiu Chow opera, and enjoys a high reputation in the opera world.

Chaosi opera in the past has been the implementation of the child actor system, the young, green, flower Dan are by children artists, these artists grow up, the voice change, that is, eliminated, this system is a serious impediment to the development of the art of chaosi opera. After the founding of New China, the child actor system was abolished and reforms were made in all aspects, training a large number of excellent actors and actresses, so that this ancient art of Teochew Opera took on a new luster.

2, singing

The Teochew Opera is sung in a true voice, and the singing is in the ancient "two-four score", which has a rich flavor. The singing is based on the combination of the song and plate system, and still retains the form of one singing, two or three chorus or the end of the song, with a unique style and strong expressive power.

The early Chaozhou opera's "gang voice", that is, the phenomenon of the backstage voices "singing in unison" when the actors on stage sang the most exciting parts, is rare in other operas, and is one of the characteristics of the Chaozhou opera.

3. Music

The music of Chiu Chow Opera is a set of songs, sung in the North and the South, with beautiful vocal cadences and tunes, light and graceful, and good at lyricism. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it absorbed the music of the plate cavity, which is flexible and colorful. There are more than 200 traditional tunes and more than 1,000 pieces of music in Chiu Chow Opera, which is an important material for the study of Chinese opera sound.

The accompanying music part retains a lot of ancient music from the Tang and Song dynasties, and absorbs Teochew gongs and drums, temple music, and folk tunes, etc. The music is beautiful and melodious, and the orchestral and percussion music is harmonious and good at expressing changes in feelings.

The accompanying musical instruments of Teochew Opera are constantly developing and enriching with the development of the times and cultural exchanges. Before the 1920s, there were only bamboo strings, suona, yuehu and yueqin, with bamboo strings as the leading instruments. In the 1920s and 1930s, the bamboo strings were replaced by the two-stringed instrument; the moon zither was replaced by the yangqin, and the large flute and small flute were added. Since the 1940s, the erhu, pipa and dahu have been added to the repertoire. There are a lot of Teochew Opera tunes, and there are a lot of different board styles, such as two-board, two-board slow, three-board slow, and other board styles are commonly used.

Based on the different combinations of musical instruments, the traditional repertoire is divided into big gong opera, small gong opera, and Su gong opera; the big gong opera is the most distinctive and the oldest, good at expressing low atmosphere and sadness, the small gongs are light and the Su gongs have a solemn atmosphere.

Fourth, the traditional repertoire and representative characters

The traditional repertoire of Chiu Chow Opera can be divided into two main categories, one is from the Southern Opera of Song and Yuan Dynasties and the legendary and miscellaneous operas of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as "Pipa Memorial", "The White Rabbit Memorial", "The Broken Kiln Memorial", "The Jade Hairpin Memorial", etc. This kind of repertoire has an elegant language, simple and meticulous workmanship, and the other one is the repertoire based on the local folklore or the local events, such as "The Lychee Memorial", "Su Liu Niang", "The Golden Flower", "The Golden Flower", etc. Su Liuniang", "Golden Flower Girl", "Longjing Ferry", etc., this kind of drama story vivid, elegant and vulgar play **** appreciation, rich in local color.

Existing early Teochew opera scripts include the handwritten copy of Liu Xibi's The Story of the Golden Hairpin in the seventh year of Xuande (1432) of the Ming Dynasty. Chiu Chow Opera can also combine with the needs of the times and stage plays that are closely related to real life. For example, during the Anti-Japanese War, a large number of plays reflecting the current events of the war appeared in large numbers, including the famous "Lugou Bridge Chronicle" and "The Ambush of Colonel Han Fuzu", which played a positive role in encouraging the masses to join the war of resistance against the Japanese.

The famous scriptwriters of Teochew Opera include Xie Yin, whose masterpieces include Qin Fenglan, Zhao Shaoqing, and The Great Righteousness of the Family; and Wu Shiwu, Lin Xianyu, Hong Xun, and Chen Mingzhen, who each have their own batch of masterpieces to be handed down to the world. Famous artists include Li Deyi, Cai Longhan and Hong Miao.

V. Current Situation

Chaosiu Opera is a vivid example of ancient Chinese opera surviving on the stage, and it is one of the representatives of the excellent cultural expressions of the Chinese nation, with profound historical significance and high aesthetic value. 1990, Chaosiu Opera was subjected to the constraints of the market economy and the impact of a variety of modern forms of art and culture, with a decrease in investment, a loss of talents and a decline in the level of artistic excellence, and the excellent traditional performing arts were on the verge of extinction. The excellent traditional performing arts are on the verge of extinction, and are in a difficult development situation, in urgent need of protection and support.