One of the ancient operas: Yuxian Yangko

If you have the complete works of Su, then you must know the "seven wonders of Dianjiang Road": there is faint smoke in the lonely village, and yangko is contested everywhere. It's a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, and the peach blossom is red. As a form of performance, Yangko has been accepted by most people, especially the people in northern China. How much do you know about Yuxian Yangko? This issue of Zhangjiakou culture will be analyzed for you.

Yuxian Yangko, also known as Yuzhou Bangzi, is an ancient Chinese drama. It originated in the old Yuzhou (Yuxian County, Hebei Province and Guangling and Lingqiu counties, Shanxi Province), and is popular in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, Yanbei and Jinbei, Shanxi Province, as far as some flag counties in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The age of Yuxian Yangko is unknown. The early Yuxian Yangko was sung by "Xundiao" (a folk song), with "No.2 Primary School" (Xiao Sheng, Xiao Dan) or "No.3 Primary School" (Xiao Sheng, Xiao Dan and Clown) as the main features, and was often performed in rural "Shehuo". Representative dramas include selling tofu and borrowing customs. Shanxi Bangzi flows into Hebei, and Yuzhou is one of the main channels, so Yuxian Yangko is deeply influenced by it, which not only absorbs Bangzi's robe and drama, but also draws lessons from Bangzi's music system.

According to the records on the stage wall of Lijiaqian Village Theater, on February 28th, 19th year of Qing Daoguang (1839), Sun Qingban, a partner of Yangko in the east, township and west of Yuxian County, performed in Longge (returning pigeons), sunflower valley (sunflower valley), playing crock and wedding. The title wall is Duan Xiang, a joint venture in the west. Among the above plays, there are early plays of Yuxian Yangko, such as "Playing Crock" and "Wedding", as well as plays transplanted from Bangzi Opera, such as "Eight Diagrams" and "Down the Mountain". These plays were staged until the 1950s. Thus, at the latest in Daoguang period of Qing Dynasty, Yuxian Yangko has completed the transformation from "two small plays" to a full-fledged drama.

The early class club of Yuxian Yangko was a seasonal organization with the village as the unit. As a part of the "social fire", it is organized and managed by the village "Shensheng Society", and its staff is limited to the villagers in the village. This is purely an amateur group that entertains itself. Up to now, there are still more than 100 such "Shehuo" yangko classes in Yuxian. Among them, the oldest yangko class is Nanjingtou Village, Beishuiquan Town, Yuxian County, which has been preserved since its establishment in the Qing Dynasty.

With the continuous development of Yuxian Yangko, many amateur troupes began to flock to other towns and villages to perform in the late Qing Dynasty, and semi-professional troupes who were both farmers and artists gradually appeared. This kind of class club is called "archival class", "shareholding class" and "joint village class". In the early 1950s, there were more than 20 such class clubs in Yuxian. Among them, Lugu Class (composed of artists from Yuxian county in the west, Guangling county and Yangyuan county, who are good at performing literary operas to win people by singing) and Zhuang Keyong Ningzhai Class (mainly artists from Yuxian county in the east, who are good at singing literary operas and martial arts) have the greatest influence and become the two centers of Yuxian Yangko. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a "team class" composed of Baozi, Guan Suo, Langpo Luqi, Hai Zhen Hong and Xu Yi once entered Zhangjiakou City and performed in Daxing Garden, which was very popular.