The story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai has been circulating in folklore for a long time, the matter is seen in the "Liang Shanbo Bao scrolls", "Huashangui" Lefu and "Visiting Friends", "The Book of the same window" legend, also known as "Double Butterfly", many of the opera types have moved to play the classic love of this famous play, which is the Yueju's "Liang Zhuhu" and the Sichuan Opera's "Willow Yinyin Ji" is the most well known, the Peking Opera has also been launched in different versions at different times: for example, at the beginning of the founding of the country Shenyang Peking Opera in the early years of the Shenyang Peking Opera. Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai starring Qin Youmei of Shenyang Peking Opera Theater in the early years of the founding of the PRC, Yingtai's Resistance to Marriage compiled by the master of Peking Opera, The Tale of the Willow Shade transplanted by Ye Shaolan and Du Jinfang according to the Sichuan Opera, and a new version of Liang Zhuhu created and rehearsed by Chi Xiaoqiu and Zhu Qiang in recent years.
The general idea of the play is that during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Zhu Yingtai went to Hangzhou (Nishan in Sichuan Opera) to study in disguise as a man, and met Liang Shanbo, who became a brother because of the similarity of their aspirations and stayed in the same class for three years. Afterwards, Zhu Yingtai returned home and asked her mother to marry Liang Shanbo. When she was sent away, Zhu Yingtai promised to marry Liang Shanbo as her sister. Liang Shanbo knew about this and went to Zhu's family to propose to her. At that time, Zhu's father, Gongyuan, had already betrothed his daughter to Ma Wencai, the son of Ma Taishou. Liang and Zhu met on the roof of a building, after which Liang Shanbo returned home sick and died. Zhu Yingtai wedding time, sedan chair detour to Liang Shanbo grave to pay tribute, thunder crack tomb, Yingtai into the grave. Liang Zhuzhu turned into a butterfly double dance.
The Vietnamese opera Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai has become the most notable and famous play on this subject due to the wide dissemination of the movie version.
Yuan Xuefen and Fan Ruijuan first performed "The History of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" in 1945, and in 1951, the East China Experimental Troupe of Yueju Opera re-staged the play with the addition of "Butterfly Dance", with a libretto narrated by Yuan Xuefen and Fan Ruijuan, penned by Xu Jin and other writers, directed by Huang Sha, with music by Chen Jie and Xue Yan, and scenic design by Xie Xingxi and Su Shi Feng. Fan Ruijuan played Liang Shanbo, Fu Quanxiang played Zhu Yingtai, Zhang Guifeng played Zhu Gongyuan, Lv Ruiying played Yinxin, Wei Xiaoyun played Sijiu, and Jin Yanfang played Shifu. In 1952, the play participated in the First National Opera Observation and Performance Conference and won the script prize, the first prize for performance, the music composition prize, the choreography prize, and the first prize for the actors Fan Ruijuan and Fu Quanxiang, the second prize for Zhang Guifeng, and the third prize for Lv Ruiying. 1953, the play was filmed by the Shanghai Film Studio into the first domestic color opera art film, written by Xu Jin and Sang Arc, directed by Yuan Xuefen and Fan Ruiying, and directed by Yuan Xuefen and Fan Xuefeng. It was written by Xu Jin and Sang Arc, directed by Sang Arc and Huang Sha, and starred Yuan Xuefen and Fan Ruijuan.
The Sichuan Opera "The Tale of the Willow Shade" also participated in the first National Opera Observation and Performance Conference in 1952 and won the script prize, Chen Shufang was awarded the first prize for the actors, and Yuan Yukun and Liu Chengji were awarded the second prize for the actors.
There are many different versions of the Peking Opera story of Liang Zhu, among which Ma Yanxiang's "The Tale of the Willow Shade," which was transplanted from a Sichuan opera, and Cheng Yanqiu's masterpiece of his later years, "Yingtai's Resistance to Marriage," are the most widely circulated.
The Tale of the Willow Shade was designed by Wang Yaoqing and premiered by Du Jinfang and Ye Shenglan in 1953. The play is divided into 10 scenes, with important scenes such as "Yingtai Bidding Farewell to Her Family", "Marrying in the Willow Shade", "Talking in the Study Hall", "Shanbo Seeing Her Off", and "Yingtai's Marriage". "Yingtai's Farewell to Her Family", "Worship in the Willow", "Talking in the Study Hall", "Shanbo's Farewell", "Yingtai's Thoughts of Her Brother", "Zhuzhuang's Visit to Friends", and "Butterfly Sacrifice at the Grave". The biggest feature of this opera is in the lyrics, elegant and gorgeous, beautiful and timeless, many phrases break the traditional seven-word, cross sentence of Beijing opera, giving people a fresh and uncluttered sense of artistic beauty, and at the same time in the design of the singing voice is very delicate, whether it is the choice of tunes, or the change of plate, that is to say, to maintain the traditional flavor, but also to seek for new changes. It is recognized as a masterpiece of the early period of the founding of China's opera.
In 1954, Peking Opera master Cheng Yanqiu staged a monumental masterpiece of the Cheng School, Yingtai's Resistance to Marriage, with reference to the relevant repertoire of other styles of opera, which was the only major opera staged by Cheng after the liberation of China, and also the last work of his life. The plot of the play remains unchanged, including "Farewell", "Worship", "Study Hall", and "Farewell", The play's plot remains unchanged, including the scenes of "Farewell", "Worship", "Study Hall", "Sending Each Other Away", "Frightened to be Hired", "Refusal of Marriage", "Offering a Grave", "Transforming a Butterfly", and so on. Later, because of the loose structure of the front part of the play, the play started with the "Marriage Surprise". There are many breakthroughs in the lyrics and singing of this opera. In terms of the lyrics: "I hope that father will withdraw from the wedding and follow my wishes, so that I can marry Liang Jun, you are my dear old Yan pro", "but why do you insist on marrying your daughter to a stranger who is unknown to me"... ...Such sentences, which are almost equivalent to prose poems, were even "put" into the singing voice by the master, and they were so tight and touching that one could not help but marvel at the master's skill. Li Shiji had staged the play at the 10th anniversary of the founding of the country.
The traditional Xiang opera play "Shan Bo Ying Tai" was written by Shao Jianghai and originated from the "Jin Ge" text. The script retains the characteristics of "Jin Ge", which is easy to read and easy to sing, and almost every scene has a large solo or duet. Among them, "Yingtai's 24 bays of weeping" is the most prominent, with more than a hundred lines of sorrowful singing, and all the weeping tunes of the Xiang opera are used in the tune, one by one, closely connected and harmonized, forming a set of singing similar to that of the tune. In "An Tong Buys Vegetables and Feasts for Shan Bo" and "Lou Tai Feasts for Twelve Plates", the names and recipes of the dishes, as well as the common examples and sayings, are all derived from the unique folklore of southern Fujian. In the play of "asking for medicine", Shan Bo is seriously ill with lovesickness, and Yingtai cuts her green silk and pants to send her gift, which is also a custom of southern Fujian. The plot of the play is different from that of other plays. For example, Yingtai has no father but a mother, Zhang's, and Ma Jun is studying in Hangzhou, so there is no "eighteen send-offs", and there is a metaphor of traveling in spring. The play "Yingtai's Tomb Sacrifice" focuses on Yingtai's mourning and crying. Curtain table play still have "Shan Bo Yingtai tour hell witness predecessor", "return to the soul of the birth of a son to conquer" and other episodes, the more distinctive is "Shan Bo loves to cry more", pouring out the Liang Shan Bo love, hate, love, resentment, In 1978, Chen Degen synthesized Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai based on Shao Jianghai's version, Taiwan's Gezai Opera and Yueju Opera's performance version, which was performed by Zhangzhou City Xiang Opera Troupe, and was staged for three hundred consecutive performances in a single theater. 1979, Qian Tianzhen and Hong Cailian, who played the roles of Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shanbo, respectively, were awarded the title of Outstanding Young Performer in Fujian Province.
Also, almost all the big and small operas such as Yu Opera and Ping Opera have the whole or folded plays of the opera.
Two repertoires of the perfunctory Liang Zhu story have caused controversy in recent years. One starred Chi Xiaoqiu and Zhu Qiang of the Shenyang Peking Opera Theater, and the other was rehearsed by the Hangzhou Yueju Opera Troupe. These two new plays, whether it is the plot or the theme of the excavation, especially in the presentation of the stage have a substantial anti-traditional "jump", due to the number of performances are not many, the scope is not wide, the author has no chance to peep at the whole picture is not good to comment, only to have seen Chi Xiaoqiu's "Crying Grave I will only say a few words about Chi Xiaoqiu's "Crying at the Grave", which I have seen. The overall feeling of the play is good, especially the rearranging of the water-sleeve work, which plays a good role in emphasizing the memories of the part of the design of the singing voice is also very touching, just in the beginning of the section of the singing of a few sentences of some of the "round", it does not sound smooth.
In recent years, the Zhejiang Yueju Opera Troupe's Fu Pai heir Chen Yi starred in the new version of the "Liang Zhu" in the "grave sacrifice" and "butterfly" two scenes.
All in all, a classic is a classic, as if it has endless stories, rhythms and exclamations.
And:
The love between Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is comparable to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Some claim that it is the pinnacle of classical Chinese tragedy, the most perfect expression of the pure and faithful feelings of Oriental men and women. This position has been the dominant one in the interpretation of the Liang Zhu story for centuries.
The Legend of Liang Zhu was first published in the Tang Dynasty in the "Ten Roads" and "Hsuanchu Zhi," etc. Although the text is relatively brief, the five senses and eyebrows have been molded. And more detailed account of its minutiae, when push the Qing dynasty Yuyue "tea incense room four notes" cited "Zhu Yingtai biography", which tells us that the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there is a woman Zhu Yingtai, nicknamed Jiu Niang, born in Zhejiang Province, a rich family, "born without brothers, talent and appearance," the parents would like to choose a spouse for her, but she excused herself and said that daughters should be Her parents wanted to choose a husband for her, but she refused, saying that her daughter should go out and study to find a real sage. So she changed her disguise to male make-up, called herself "Jiu Guan", traveled the world, the road met Liang Shanbo, Huiji (now Shaoxing), sympathize with each other, and then together to build a study under the Biyuyan of Yixing Shanquan Mountain in Jiangsu Province, study hard, and live and sleep together for up to three years, and Liang did not know that Zhu is a woman. When they parted, Zhu Yingtai instructed Liang Shanbo to come to his home on the appointed day to attend the appointment, he would tell his parents, his sister "Nine Niang" married him, which is in fact a secret promise in return for his life.
But Liang Shanbo was too poor and inferior to go to the house, and delayed the appointment. So Zhu Yingtai's parents contracted their daughter's marriage with the wealthy Ma family. Later, Liang Shanbo became the governor of Yin County, when he went to his post, he passed by Zhu's house and inquired about the person of "Nine Officials", and the houseboy replied that there was only "Nine Niang" in the house and there was no such person as "Nine Officials". Liang Shanbo was then shocked to realize that there was no "Jiu Guan" in the house, so he begged to see her on the grounds of friendship with his classmates. Yingtai covered her face with a fan and bowed, but that was all. Liang Shanbo was too remorseful to do anything about it, and became sick with longing, and died of illness shortly afterward.
The biography goes on to describe that the next year Yingtai married into the Ma family and ordered the sailors to make a detour to Liang Shanbo's grave to pay their respects. Upon arrival, the wind and waves were strong. Yingtai lost her voice and cried in front of Shanbo's tomb. The earth suddenly cracked and Yingtai fell into the grave, leaving only her dress outside, but she also turned into a butterfly and fluttered away. When the prime minister Xie An heard the story, he reported it to the court, and the emperor honored Yingtai's loyalty and love by naming her "Righteous Woman". Nowadays, when the azaleas are in full bloom on the mountain, there are often large saucers flying away, which are said to be the souls of the two people, so the world calls these large butterflies Zhu Yingtai. The Ming Dynasty Chen Renxi's "Qiancheng class book", said the Southern Qi Jianyuan two years, the local people in the year when the study of the old mansion built "Bi Moss Nunnery", engraved with "Zhu Yingtai reading place" to commemorate this extraordinary women. By now, the tragedy of Liangzhu has become a twisted plot, euphemistic and touching, and has roughly completed the development process of its narrative structure.
The Legend of Liang Zhu under the Gay Grammar
However, the emotional tragedy of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is inevitable, for it is not an unusual "male love". Although Zhu Yingtai fell in love with Liang Shanbo, it is indeed the traditional love of a woman for a man, and there is no need to make a big fuss about it, but Liang Shanbo's feelings for Zhu Yingtai are very strange, and it is well worthwhile for us to ponder over it. Fifteen years ago I wrote an article identifying it as a disguised example of homosexuality, showing the basic characteristics of Chinese gay culture and aesthetics, but this tragedy, which has long circulated in the Wu-Yue and even the Yangtze River valley, is also an example of discursive misinterpretation (or concealment). From the time it was spoken and transmitted until it was expanded and stereotyped in Yueju opera, Liang Zhu has been subjected to heteronormative discursive interpretations, so that its true semantics have long been distorted, and will continue to be distorted.
The misinterpretation of the story is due to the fact that the main characters are a man and a woman. The way to eliminate this misreading is to reread the text using queer grammar.
We can clearly see that at the entrance of the text of "Liang Zhu" stands the handsome figure of Liang Shanbo, who is walking alone on the road to visit the school, when another graceful "man" (impersonated by Zhu Yingtai) Another graceful "man" (Zhu Yingtai in the guise of Zhu Yingtai) appears in his lonely field of vision. This stranger "man" with "his" beauty, shyness and gentleness, ignited the fire of Liang Shanbo's love, prompting him to "friendship" in the name of the walk with it and even the hut **** residence! . They stayed in the same room, day and night, the feelings are getting deeper and deeper, and Liang is waiting for an emotional strike at the right time.
What kind of image is Zhu Yingtai made up into a man, this point can be obtained from the Yueju opera "Liang Zhu" in the revelation. Zhu Yingtai, played by an actress, despite being dressed as a scribe, still has a spring in her brow and exudes a woman's charm from her bones. But what is unusual is that this "effeminate" look does not trigger Liang Shanbo's resentment, but rather creates a remarkable "friendship" with the former.
Ju Yingtai did not realize the special meaning of Liang's "friendship". She was secretly in love with Liang and thought that if she reverted to female makeup, Liang would be doubly delighted and take her as his wife. On the occasion of parting, she implicitly sends a grand invitation to Liang Shanbo, hoping that he will come to his home on time to welcome her sister (a code word for herself) "Jiuniang". This is an ambiguous and moving appeal from an old-time woman to a man.
However, Liang Shanbo did not show up for his appointment as scheduled. He explained that his family was so poor that he couldn't afford to buy a bride price or a wedding ceremony. This is obviously a kind of excuse. A more logical deduction is that he had no interest in marrying a woman. He simply loved his brother, "Nine Officials". In order to avoid the "trouble" caused by "marrying", he suppressed his strong desire to be reunited with Zhu Yingtai. His plan was to delay the appointment of the bride price first, making the marriage impossible, and then pay a visit to Zhu Yingtai, in order to get rid of the infinite longing for Zhu Yingtai. But this move dealt a serious blow to Zhu Yingtai. Her parents could not allow their daughter to continue to spend her youth for a poor disciple and decided to betroth her to the wealthy Ma family. Zhu Yingtai couldn't find any reason to shirk the decision and could only agree to this parental order.
The "awakening" of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai
After that, events became more and more dramatic. When Liang Shanbo made a special trip to visit Zhu Yingtai on his way to Ningbo to become an official, the boy claimed that there was only "Jiu Niang" in the house, not "Jiu Guan", which made Liang realize that he had made the worst mistake of his life -- falling in love with a real woman. This makes Liang realize that he has made the worst mistake of his life - falling in love with a real woman. Shocked, he asked to see Zhu with his own eyes to confirm the houseboy's story. Zhu Yingtai covered her face with a fan and came out to bow to him. Liang was shocked and furious, thinking that he had been deceived - this woman, disguised as a man, had deceived him and made him a plaything of her feelings! This confirmed once again the viciousness of women in the world. However, Zhu's charming image continues to haunt and torment Liang, making it impossible for him to get rid of the sweet memories of the past and the cruel reality. Although serving as a magistrate was in line with his ideal of helping the people, the fatal mental pain eventually pushed him towards illness, injury and death.
Surprised to learn of Liang Shanbo's death, Zhu Yingtai's initial reaction was one of unspeakable sadness and remorse. She took Liang's shock and anger at seeing her "real body" as evidence of Liang's passionate love and remorse. She regrets that she failed to reveal her gender in time, which caused an irreparable fatal blow to his heart. But by this time, some rumors about Liang Shanbo's homosexuality may have been coming in one after another. She was half-believing, half-doubting, sad and annoyed, and embarked on the road to get married with mixed feelings.
In order to confirm the rumors, she ordered the boatman to make a special detour to Qingdao Mountain, and stopped the boat and docked on the grounds that the wind and waves were too strong, and then went to visit Liang's tomb alone. From this time to her "suicide", something unspeakable must have happened in the meantime, which made her finally realize the real essence of Liang Shanbo's feelings for her. She realized that she had been greatly deceived and humiliated: her love for Liang Shanbo was nothing but a game of self-deception.
At the end of the incident, Zhu Yingtai must have left us by "disappearing". She left her "embroidered dress" in despair, changed into men's clothes again, and fled to a place we don't know, where she remained anonymous and unaccounted for.
In order to find a rational explanation for Zhu Yingtai's disappearance, the Ma family, a local tycoon, went to great lengths. They fabricated the scenario that the earth (the tomb) cracked open and Zhu Yingtai fell into martyrdom, in order to conceal the truth and deceive the world. Even the state officials and the emperor were convinced of this. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, when true and false miracles were mixed together, people could believe in all kinds of strange things. I don't want to make an issue of this. My surprise is that, despite the many flaws in this case, after nearly a thousand years of inquiry and interpretation, no one has yet raised the necessary objections.
"Butterflies in love with flowers" or "butterflies in love with butterflies"
At the end of the Liangzhu tragedy, there is a pair of large butterflies that never fly apart. According to Feng Menglong's "History of Love", after Zhu Yingtai's death, her family burned the clothes she left behind in front of her grave, and those clothes actually turned into butterflies in the flames. The local people called the yellow butterfly Liang Shanbo and the black butterfly Zhu Yingtai. This shows us once again the gay semantics of the story.
The Lingnan Foreign Objects Journal records that there is a giant butterfly in the South China Sea, the shape is as big as a sail, remove the wings and feet, there are eighty pounds of weight, the flavor is extremely delicious. This kind of super meat butterfly has long disappeared nowadays, and the butterfly that people see is just a slender and beautiful Lepidoptera insect, which symbolizes the freedom and joy of human beings, as well as the covetousness of beautiful things. It is also a strange code for male love. In addition, butterflies and flowers ("butterflies and flowers") are also symbols of the pairing of male and female love.
Philosophizing about butterflies first appeared in the fables of Zhuang Zhou. It was the Taoist masters who first revealed the close relationship between this insect and humans. They could transform into each other in the unconscious state of dreams. Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream expresses the dissolution of boundaries between objects. The first strange case of butterfly transformation in Chinese history, as recorded in the Book of Searching for the Divine (the version cited in the Taiping Huan Yu Ji), took place in the state of Qi during the Warring States period. The king of Song, the king of Song Kang, took over the wife of his official Han Diploma He, Han Diploma suicide in anger, and his wife from the Qingling platform (now Shandong Yuncheng) on the jump down to kill themselves, the king of Song Kang's guards rushed to pull her dress, but the pieces of the beautiful butterfly.
The story of Liang Zhu seems to be a sort of extension of He's tragedy, but its semantics are quite different. We find that the butterfly's chrysalis transformation process is meaningful, as it emerges from a cylindrical or spindle-shaped chrysalis, suggesting the transformation of a "woman" (a caterpillar in the larval stage) into a "man". Zhu Yingtai's butterfly transformation (masculinization) is undoubtedly a response to Liang Shanbo's emotional commitment, i.e., after a change in sexual orientation, Zhu finally realizes his extraordinary love for Liang. This is the great moment that gay men look forward to. The butterfly stands out in that fleeting moment, its body covered with rainbow-like patterns, dancing in the flowers, becoming graceful and radiant. In the final stage of its life form, it shows us its splendor.
The relationship between the butterfly and the flower alludes to the love of a man for a woman, but the relationship between a pair of butterflies is very different, and it can only be interpreted as the love between two men. This emotion is undoubtedly difficult to talk about. Despite the popularity of "male homosexuality" in the court and the scholarly community of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, in an era when Confucianism was becoming more and more prevalent, it was still necessary to complete the narrative with the help of rhetorical techniques such as metaphors, puns, and substitutions. Its semantics are implicitly written in the butterflies that fly together, turning it into an undeclared mystery for the clever world to decipher.
This is the core value of the butterfly in the whole narrative. I don't know who was responsible for this perfect ending, but it is undoubtedly the finishing touch to the whole legend, hiding at the end of the story and revealing to us the true nature of the tragedy.
The "lesbian aesthetic" of Yueju opera
Without destroying any of the structure or elements, and with a mere change in the code, we get a completely new version of the story of Liang Zhu. This is not so much an act of novelistic interpretation as a semantic restoration of the story of Liang Zhu. It is this kind of folk discourse that has provided a monumental source for modern opera, imbuing it with a certain disorienting anomie and eclipsing the usual emotional texts.
While there have been various Peking Opera ("Yingtai's Resistance to Marriage") and Sichuan Opera ("The Tale of the Willow Shade") styles, the Yueju Opera, in its homeland of folk homoeroticism in the south of the Yangtze River, is the best genre for the tragedy of the Liang Zhuhu, which was first staged by Yuan Xuefen and Fan Ruijuan in 1945, and then re-staged, and was awarded the prize for the script and the first prize for the performance at the National Opera Viewing and Performing Conference of 1952, doubly winning the prize for the actors and so on, In 1953, the play was made into the first domestic color opera art film, thus fully establishing the authoritative status of Yueju opera in interpreting Liang Zhu.
The affinity between the story of Liang Zhu and Yueju Opera is also due to the fact that its actors are all women. From "Kusakiao", "Eighteen Sentiments", "Meeting on the Terrace" to "Butterflies Flying Together", a group of beautiful women performs the love affair between a man and a woman. A group of beautiful women perform the love stories of men and women, and the mellow and graceful dances, the soft and sweet singing, and the low and melodious silk and bamboo, transform the theater surrounded by the water town into a pure land of daughters. "The Cultural Revolution attempted to revamp Yueju Opera by forcing it to include male actors, but the result was exactly the same - all the male roles exuded feminine splendor. Even the violin concerto "Liang Zhuhu" is irrepressibly feminine and soft.
The "merit" of Yueju Opera is that it has transformed the story of Liangzhu from a hidden angle, quietly replacing this "gay men's" dirge with a "lesbian's" emotion! Sacred Drama. Liang Shanbo does not seem to be a male, but more like a T-horn who plays an active role in "lesbianism", and "he" transcends the boundaries of patriarchal culture and writes a magnificent chapter of national gay aesthetics. With the full support of former Premier Zhou Enlai, and after the tireless work of Dream of the Red Chamber, The West Wing, Legend of the White Snake, The Love Detective, Chasing Fish, and The Jasper Hairpin, Yueju Opera has approached the core of this aesthetic.