Gezhai Opera is a southern Fujian dialect opera genre formed by absorbing the nutrients of Liyuan Opera, Beiguan Opera, Gaojia Opera, Chiu Chow Opera, and Peking Opera based on southern Fujian Gezhai. At the end of the Ming and early Qing dynasties, the national hero Zheng Chenggong eastward to recapture Taiwan, will be popular in southern Fujian folk song "Jin song" to Taiwan, soon widely sung in Taiwan, the masses spontaneously organized the singing of the Jin song "music society" and "Gezai array". the early twentieth century, the Gezai opera in Taiwan, soon spread to Xiamen, and quickly spread to southern Fujian and Southeast Asia, where the overseas Chinese reside.
Gezai Opera, also known as "Taiwan Gezai Opera", is a local opera genre cultivated and loved by Taiwan compatriots and Fujian people***, and is popular in Taiwan and Fujian Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and other southern Fujian-speaking areas, as well as in Southeast Asia where overseas Chinese reside.
Photos of "Penglai Daxian" The formation of Gezai Opera is closely related to the development of Taiwan by the people of Southern Fujian and the introduction of folk arts, such as music and jingo, into the country. The musical tunes of Gezai Opera are very rich, including the melodious and high-spirited [Seven Characters Tune], [Big Tune], and [Back Thoughts Tune], as well as the folk ballad style [Taiwan's Miscellaneous Numinous Tune], and even more melancholic and sorrowful weeping tunes. In addition, it has absorbed local folk songs and some opera music as supplements. The performers use their real voices to sing. The main musical instruments include the shell-child string, the big wide string, the Taiwanese flute and the moon piano. Its performances, roles, costumes, face painting and percussion are basically taken from Peking Opera.
History
Gezai Opera is the only folk opera formed in Taiwan, and it is the folk art with the most distinctive characteristics of Taiwanese culture, as well as the most localized, popular and representative of Taiwan's local theatre. It is also the most popular and representative local theater among Taiwan's local operas. Jin Ge is a kind of folk rap and singing art sung by a man and a woman. As early as the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was named after the two sides of the Jinjiang River in Southern Fujian (the area from Jiangdongqiao to Haicheng today), where it was popularized.
Jin Ge is unique in the style of southern Fujian songs, soft and lyrical tunes, with a strong sense of local flavor, for the public favorite. Legend has it that a large number of southern Min people moved to Taiwan with Zheng Chenggong in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and at the same time brought the Jin Ge, car drums and drums of Zhangzhou Xiangjiang area, tea-picking praise songs and other arts and crafts to Taiwan, and they were quite popular. To Taiwan's southern Fujian military and civilian, nostalgic for their homeland, often in the mountains to cut firewood, fishing or tea after dinner, sing a few lines of Jin Ge tune, to send their homesickness for the feelings of their ancestors. Jin song gradually become indispensable in the life of the people of southern Fujian in Taiwan, people called Jin song for the "song", used to distinguish from the popular opera in Taiwan. In order to *** with the appreciation of the hometown tunes, Minnan people in Taiwan to set up a song hall, as a place to sing, also known as "sitting and singing". There are also temples and farmers' homes to sing, called "walking singing". In this way, jingge (i.e., singing) gradually flourished throughout Taiwan. Folkloric "music societies" and "singing formations" gradually appeared to sing the songs.
Gezhai flourished in the northern part of Taiwan first, and then, together with other songs and ballads, it became a kind of folk music, popularized among fishermen and farmers, and was called "Yilan Gezhai," which was mainly performed on the streets. After more than 200 years of development, by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the tunes of Gezai had absorbed the folk songs and dances of southern Fujian, such as "Caicha Tune", "Pinggu" and other tunes, and blended with the "Seven Characters and Four Words" Xiaoqu of Taiwanese folk music, and borrowed from the performance form of traditional Chinese drama, gradually forming a kind of ancient costume singing opera sung in Southern Fujian, i.e., Gezai Opera. In the 1920s, the opera began to be integrated into small plays. Later, under the influence of Zhengzhi Opera, Gaojia Opera, Chiu Chow Opera, and Beijing Opera, the opera was gradually enriched and stereotyped, and was put on the stage.
After the development of Gezai Opera in Taiwan, it has never forgotten its ancestral home; in 1928, two opera troupes from Taiwan, "Sanlexuan" and "Shuangzhufeng", performed in Minnan and Xiamen under the name of going back to their hometowns to pay homage to their ancestors, and the Gezai Opera spread back to Minnan, Fujian Province, and became popular for a while. Its native voice and tunes y infected the audience in their hometowns, and they specially invited opera masters from Taiwan to coach the opera. Famous opera actors and actresses continued to emerge, and their acting skills were greatly improved, and the opera soon became popular in the southern Fujian area. Because it is popular in Fujian Xiang River basin, so in the southern Fujian area is also known as "Xiang opera".
The development of Taiwan's opera was also more tortuous, and it was once destroyed by the Japanese colonial rulers. After the restoration of Taiwan, the opera was redeveloped, with the 1950s becoming the most glorious period for the opera, and the number of opera troupes once reached more than 230, accounting for nearly half of the various troupes in Taiwan at the time. Since then, with the progress of society and the influence of the development of modern culture and art forms, traditional operas such as Gezai Opera are no longer popular among young people, but only among middle-aged and old people and the community, and in October 1990, the Taiwan Gezai Opera Society was established, aiming to promote and save the art of Gezai Opera.
Artistic Characteristics
Gezai Opera began as a duet between a man and a woman, but later developed into a full-fledged drama with three lines: Sheng, Dan, and Chou, as well as Ke, Qu, and Bai. In the Sheng line, there are Xiao Sheng, Lao Sheng, Wen Sheng and Wu Sheng; in the Dan line, there are Bitter Dan and Zheng Dan; and in the Chou line, there are San Hua and Wife, etc. All the characters are sung with real voices. All the actors and actresses sing with their real voices, and the bitter dan is the most distinctive among them.
The content of Gezai Opera is based on the singing of folktales, with repertoires such as Chen San Wu Niang, Liu Xiu's Restoration of the Kingdom, The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, The Legend of Jigong, and Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, which emphasize loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness, and are generally performed without fixed scripts, and still traditionally performed in the form of "Mr. Opera" narrating the play and assigning roles.
Gezilian opera has a lot of music and fewer rhythms. The musical tunes of Gezai Opera include "Seven Character Tunes", "Crying Words" and "Miscellaneous Numinous Tunes", while the singing dialogues are Taiwanese accents synthesized from the Xiamen and Zhangzhou dialects. The lyrics can be long or short, depending on the plot. Among the more than one hundred traditional tunes, there are the melodious and high-pitched Seven Character Tune, the Great Tune, and the Back Thoughts Tune, as well as the folk ballad-style Taiwan Miscellaneous Numinous Tune, and the melancholic and sorrowful Crying Tune. In addition, it is supplemented by local Taiwanese folk songs and some opera music.
The musical instruments of Gezai Opera, like those of other operas, are divided into Wenchang Opera and Wuchang Opera. The musical instruments of Wuchang Opera are similar to those of Peking Opera, and include drums, vertical rights, drums, wooden fishes, small cymbals, cymbals, gongs, gongs, and brass bells, with the addition of small screams and willow janxes. Instruments of Wenchang Opera, in the early days, the main instruments were shells and strings, big wide-stringed moon zither, Taiwan flute, and later Erhu, Dongxiao, duck mother flute, suona; in recent years, there are pipa, oboe, and western instruments to participate in the accompaniment. According to the different forms of performance and theater forms, it can be divided into floor sweeping songzai ding, wild stage songzai opera, inner stage songzai opera, etc. With the rise of mass media such as radio, film and television, radio songzai opera, songzai opera movies and TV songzai opera also emerged.
Species of Gezai Opera
1, Floor Sweeping Gezai Formation
Gezai (jinggong), which was introduced to Taiwan from southern Fujian, was developed into "local gezai" in Yilan, and was later imitated in the performance style of the Chegu Opera, where it performed comical and witty folktales, and paraded with the sedan chair, which was called the "Gezai Formation".
The most primitive performance style of Gezai Opera is the song and dance performance, which is performed in the open space of the temple, or with the procession of the parade to the square of the entrance of the temple, and then surrounded the performance area with four bamboo poles, and then performed on the spot.
There are only four plays performed by the land sweeps, namely, Shan Bo Ying Tai, Sh Xi Xi Ji, Lu Meng Zheng, and Chen San Wu Niang. The actors are mainly clowns and dancers, and most of them do not wear costumes and do not have complicated body parts. The performers of the small opera are mostly non-professional actors, so the performance content is mostly simple movements, and the music is not complicated, usually repeating with one or a few tunes. These performances are mostly non-profit amateur performances, and the performing teams are all organized by the public on their own initiative, so the fun of the performance is higher than the artistic standard required.
2. Nodai Opera
Dressing up as a fairy
Nodai Opera is an off-stage opera that is mostly performed at the entrance of temples. The wild stage opera is the most common type of opera performed by singers. Local singers absorbed the essence of other types of theater and wore costumes to perform on stage, and the opera became a major type of opera. Most of the performances of Nodai Opera are related to religious activities, such as temple festivals, paying tribute to the gods, building jiao-festivals and the Birthday of the God, etc., and many of them are performed by Nodai Opera.
The characteristics of Nodai Opera are hilarious and simple, as the main reason for folk performances is to honor the gods, it is more ceremonial than artistic; and Nodai Opera must perform an "auspicious play", commonly known as "playing the fairy", before the main play is performed in order to pray for the people's well-being, and the relationship between the gods and humans is fused and met in the process of playing the fairy.
3. Inside Taiwanese opera
Inside Taiwanese opera refers to opera performed in indoor theaters of theaters, which are ticketed and are profit-making performances. Art": to the Republic of China four, five years, Koo Hsien-yung to the Japanese bought Taipei Tamsui Theater, renamed the new stage, as the province's entertainment institutions, its managers to see the opera is very popular, so the establishment of the new Dance Society Opera Troupe funded the theater often rehearsed opera, and charge tickets. It was the first opera troupe in the province with the nature of business. And the separate opera for inside and outside the opera, also began at this time. Since the inner stage operas were for profit, the stage sets, lighting and costumes were more elaborate, and the performances were more rigorous than those of the wild stage operas. In addition, before the public performance, the actors usually wear costumes and "step on the street" in order to attract the audience to publicize the show and increase the box office revenue. During the 44th year of the Republic of China (R.O.C.), the heyday of Nei-taiwanese opera, there were about 300 such opera troupes in the whole of Taiwan at that time, which shows its prosperity.
4. Radio Opera
The broadcasting industry was the first to transform opera. During the 43rd and 44th years of the Republic of China (R.O.C.), radio opera began to appear, and many radio stations broadcast opera programs; in addition, some radio stations also organized their own opera groups to record or sing live, and transmitted them to various places through radio broadcasting.
Because radio opera is "all sound and no action", the actors do not have to perform any body movements, so the emphasis is on singing and recitation. In addition, due to the long broadcasting time of the radio opera, a large number of tunes are required. In addition to singing the traditional opera tunes, the opera also absorbs the four-sentence, seven-phrase tune form of popular songs, which is rich in the new life of the opera.
5. Gezai Opera Movie
Gezai Opera movie started in 1955 with the Taiwanese movie "Six Talents in the West Wing". Songzai opera movies were loved by audiences because of the popularity of songzai opera. However, despite the fact that songzai opera movies were a sensation for a while, because songzai opera is suitable for the stage after all, songzai opera movies also declined after 1962.
6. Television Opera
In 1962, the Taiwan Television Corporation (TTC) was established and launched the first television opera, "Leifeng Pagoda". At that time, however, television sets were not widely available in Taiwan and black-and-white movies were used, so there were not many people who appreciated TV opera, and radio opera was the most popular form of performance at that time.
The biggest change in TV opera is that it has moved from symbolic theater to realistic theater, replacing the realistic body parts with physical objects. For example, when riding a horse, it is necessary to shoot the horseback riding scenes, while mountains, heaven and bridges need to be set up; due to the increase in props and sets, and the addition of many lightweight, flying and drilling scenes, the body parts of TV opera have been greatly reduced. In addition, because the TV opera is pre-recorded, any actor who forgets the words, sings incorrectly, or laughs can start over again with NG, which also leads to the degradation of the actor's acting and singing skills. However, the TV opera sets are gorgeous and vivid, but also attracted some viewers.
Inheritance value
Since the birth of the opera, cross-strait opera troupes and performers have been exchanging performances, and as a valuable art form created by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the opera has become an important link in the spiritual culture of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The protection and development of Gezai Opera is of great significance to the promotion of Chinese opera culture and the peaceful reunification of the motherland. However, with the progress of society and the influence of modern cultural and artistic forms and fashions, Gezai Opera is now mainly popular among the middle-aged and the elderly, and young people are no longer interested in it, which greatly affects the survival and continuity of Gezai Opera, and requires the formulation of measures to protect it.
The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, on May 20, 2006, Gezai Opera was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. on June 8, 2007, Gezai Opera Troupe of Xiamen City, Fujian Province, was awarded the first Cultural Heritage Day Prize issued by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China.