The performances of Hengzhou Flower Drum Opera are characterized by songs and dances, relaxed and lively art. The songs and dances are closely combined with the plot, and the main plots of some plays are in the form of songs and dances.
The performances of Hengzhou Flower Drum Opera have strong colors of songs and dances. For example, the movements of rowing boat, chopping wood and grinding tofu in "Picking Lotus", "Liu Hai Chopping Wood" and "Grinding Tofu" are all the dance movements refined and beautified according to the real life, and the main plots of some other operas are all expressed through songs and dances. Another performance characteristic is that the performance is very delicate, even exaggerated, in the "Blue Bridge Club" in the famous Dan Zhang Qiusheng played blue Ruilian, and the boy met, shaking open the handkerchief, shyly cover half of the face, but from the finger gap in the secret message, the two parted, she looked back with lowered eyebrows, tears rustling down, acting vividly, very real and touching. Henzhou flower-drum opera singing is very characteristic of the region, influenced by the Shi Dao music and Buddhist music, the tune is very lively, accompanied by nazi and gongs and drums, Henzhou flower-drum opera is mainly nazi plate, Chuanzi tune, three main voice, and a few miscellaneous cavity, high pitch, warm, lyrical, with a strong sense of local flavor and the flavor of the field and mountain songs, the form of performance is close to life. The music of Hengzhou Flower Drum Opera is known for its lively, cheerful, high-pitched and rough, enthusiastic and exuberant, with a very strong flavor of mountain songs.
Early "two small plays" to "nazi plate" as the main, singing, accompaniment, gongs and drums at the same time, the atmosphere is warm and lively joy, "nazi plate" **** there are more than sixty. *There are more than 60 pieces. Later on, the "Chuanzi tune", which is a more opera-oriented vocal accent, was introduced and developed into a plate style, which is more suitable for showing various changes in mood. "Chuanzi tune" is flexible and can be accompanied by nazi or huqin. There are two kinds of ditties: folk ditties and silk-string ditties. Folk ditties have more words and fewer chambers, while silk-string ditties have fewer words and more chambers.
Late in the Qing Dynasty and early in the Republic of China, the flower-drum opera of Hengyu appeared in the situation of "half-light, half-opera", that is to say, the introduction of the north-south road of Hengyang Xiang opera. Artists called "rain and snow", the people called "half-light half theater", that is, the youngest, the youngest Dan, clowns singing flower drum tune, the old man, flower face singing north and south road. This situation lasted until the beginning of the founding of the country gradually changed. The accompaniment of Henzhou Flower Drum Opera is divided into civil and military fields. Before the founding of New China, there were only two kinds of instruments, namely, "bamboo tube" (huqin) and suona, and then erhu, sanxian, yangqin, flute, pipa and violin were gradually added, but the main instruments were still suona and "bamboo tube". The old man said, "If you don't know suona, you don't know Zuochang (Wenchang)". There are five kinds of suona, i.e., the big suona, the second tang, the three nazi, the four nazi, and the full nazi (bamboo cue). "The bamboo tubes and poles are made of bamboo, and compared with the "big tubes" used in Changsha Flower Drum Opera, the tubes are longer and thinner, and the strings are set in the East (2/6), West (4/1), South (5/2), and North (6/3) tunes.
There is another kind of four degrees of fixed strings (3/6), called the wide tuning hand, specializing in matching the call. The martial arts field is accompanied by percussion. In the early six to eight person class, only two people operate, playing drums and small cymbals, playing a large gong and cymbals, small gongs are mostly by the inspection of the field of apprentices, drums are also simpler. It was only after the founding of New China that there was greater development. The lyrics are sung in dialect, which is especially interesting to the local people. For example, in "Blue Jizi Bricks", "The old master and herdsman can see the situation, and he wants me to come home to take care of it", "the old master and herdsman" is a typical dialect of Hengyang, and such examples abound in the Flower Drum Opera of Hengyu. It can be said that the stage language of Henzhou Flower Drum Opera is refined on the basis of Henzhou dialect, which can be roughly divided into three schools of Hengyang, Hengshan and Anren according to the Steam Water Basin, Mu River Basin and Lei Water Basin, and its origin and evolution, repertoire, music and performing arts are not far from each other.
The early traditional repertoire of the flower-drum opera in Hengyang had no fixed scripts, and only the lyrics of the minor operas were fixed, and all the words were improvised by the actors. In the big plays, there was only a synopsis, and the artist was called "Qiao Lu". Every night before the show, first by the old reputable artists speak "Joe", that is, the distribution of roles, story outline, the sequence of appearances, baggage buckle. Then the artists go to the stage to improvise, called "water words"; borrowed or fixed key lines called "nails". Therefore, the same play, depending on the actor, the scalability is very big, artists call this situation "Jianghu eighteen root road, road to road." After a long period of performance practice, successive generations of artists mainly use verbal creation, complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, and gradually make the script tends to be stereotyped.
Henzhou flower-drum opera script is easy to understand, miscellaneous use of vernacular accent, vivid image, a strong sense of life. However, due to the miscellaneous use of native accent, the stage language also has a popular regional dialect, such as Hengshan around the use of Hengshan official language, Anjiang, Yongxing close to the Chenzhou official language, but the clown line is still using the Hengyang dialect. The division of the flower-drum opera line in Hengzhou is dominated by the minor student, minor dan, and clown, while the senior student, senior dan, and flower face do not have any specialized line of actors. Early flower-drum opera artists, "three small" division of labor is not very clear, most of the full turn, what is missing on the top of what corner. Until the 1940s, only began to have a clearer line division. In the "three small" line, headed by clowns, performance technology requirements are higher, to have hands, eyes, body, step, nose, fan, hand towel and other basic skills, will speak a variety of official language, but also master some folk martial arts.
The Dan line is based on the performance of rural women, such as "Pair of Tones", "Crossing the River", "Playing the Money Whip", "Shaking the Pestle", "Grinding Bean Curd" and other plays. At the same time pay attention to humor, fun, exaggeration. For example, in "Shan Bo Visits Friends", the detail of the book boy Sijiu stealing wine from Liang Shan Bo's hands by taking a bowl is inserted, and in "Man Gu Noisy Marriage", Li Yulian falls in love with Man Gu at first sight, and the sight of the two of them relative to each other can be held by the book boy from which the body is shaken with it. In the middle and late periods, the repertoire was mostly "three small plays" with richer themes. In addition to draw from rural life, there are also drawn from Han folklore, mythology and Nuo altar activities closely related to the play.
From an overall point of view, the repertoire of Huadu Opera in Hengzhou has the characteristics of easy to understand. Most of the script is taken from daily life, performances of ordinary characters, and miscellaneous use of native language accent, vivid image, life is very strong. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, a number of modern plays were created, adapted and organized, such as "Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law Competition", "Mending Pot", "Spring Mountain Pass", "Re-encounter", "Two Pot Soup" and so on. There are 165 traditional repertoires preserved in Henzhou Flower Drum Opera. Among them, there are 104 small plays, 35 medium-sized plays and 26 big plays. In terms of vocalization, there are 126 Sichuan tunes, 27 gongs and drums, and 12 small tunes.
In the whole repertoire, 1/3 is "two small plays", 60% is "three small plays", and there are fewer big plays. Early repertoire for the "two small plays" themes mainly from rural areas. The plays of this period had simple plots, positive and healthy ideological tendencies, and a strong sense of life and local characteristics. Zhang Tingyu (1910-1966) was known by the stage name of Xuesaeko. He was an actor in the flower-drum opera of Hengyang County. He was a native of Hengyang County. When he was six years old, his father died and his mother married, so he was left alone and without support, and was taken in by the sorcerer Tang Chengshu, who took pity on him and adopted him as his son. At the age of nine, he learned from Deng Jinsheng to sing the Henzhou Flower Drum Opera. He became famous in the countryside for his performance of "An An Sending Rice", and was very much loved by his teacher, who often carried him on his back to perform in various places. When he was a little older, he practiced the Dan line, and because of his inverted voice, he switched to learning the scene (musician). In the 19th year of the Republic of China (1930), Tingyu's voice gradually recovered, and Wang Chunhe, the master of the Descendants' class, persuaded him to learn the small student from Qu Rongqing. His first performance as Zhang Jinsheng in "The Meeting of the Golden Chushion" won him a standing ovation because of his handsome costume, big eyes, and delicate performance. From then on, "Xue Saeko" became famous in the flower-drum art world of Henzhou for more than thirty years. Zhang Tingyu was good at playing the poor scholar, with "Yang Chunlong" and "Zhu Baichen" as his masterpieces. He played Yang Chunlong, in the "East Pavilion meeting" a section (Sichuan crying skin), sang a lingering, tearful. His singing voice is very distinctive, powerful mouth, words into the ear, cavity with the word line, melodious. Yang Chunlong plays the fishing drums even better, exposing the despicable behavior of Liu Hongji, who loves the rich and the poor, in a playful manner, which is so enjoyable that one never tires of watching it. He played Zhu Baichen, in the "noisy marriage" scene, with the simple and generous against Cui's savagery, Zhu Baichen poor but not vulgar, simple but not stupid character performance is just right. Zhou Enlan, who played Cui's role, said, "When acting with Mr. Zhang, he can pull him into the play, and he can act well even if he doesn't know how to act". In 1955, Zhang Tingyu took part in the second Hunan Provincial Opera Observatory, playing Wei Kuiyuan in the opera "Water Runs Over the Blue Bridge". This was a one-act play for a young student, with equal emphasis on singing and acting. His acting skills are superb, especially when he acted to the water on the bridge, the character mood, the water level, the Chinese Opera Academy Luo Heru, Guo Hancheng, Hu Sha and other experts praise, won the first prize for actors. He has played a wide range of roles, including Zhang Tianshi in "Chasing Fish", the humorous and witty Big Sister in "Liu Hai Chopping Wood", the sophisticated Huang Boshi in "Life and Death Card", and the dignified military political commissar in "The Red Sun of Ke Shan", and all of them were able to convey the spirit of the characters and each of them was perfect in its own way. The new cadences (Xihu Erliu), (Xihu Rolling Skin), and (Sanchuan Tune) have become the preserved cadences of the flower-drum opera of Hengyu. (Source: Chinese Opera Journal - Hunan Volume).
Zhang Tingyu was six years old when his father died and his mother married, and his master, Tang Chengfu, took pity on him and accepted him as his son. Tang had a disciple Deng Jinsheng, Deng Mingshan also practice flower drums, so he taught Zhang. At the age of nine, Tingyu joined the "Successful Class" with his master, and performed with his fellow artists in "Grinding Beancurd", "Crossing the River" and other small plays. He played the role of An An in "An An Delivering Rice", and his performance of "Seeing Mother in the Nunnery" was so heartfelt that it was hard for mother and son to part, which brought tears to his eyes. When she was a little older, she worked as a dan, but when she lost her voice, she was despised and bullied, and then she switched to practicing as a musician and learned from her teacher, Dynasty Hei. In the nineteenth year of the Republic of China (1930), Wang Chunhe, the master of the Desheng class, sympathized with Tingyu's life and sufferings, and hired him with a full salary of ten paws and advised him to learn the role of the youngest student, teaching him several plays of the youngest student, such as "A Visit to a Friend - A Meeting of the Writers" and "Yang Chunlong Writes About Retreating from the Marriage". After that, his voice was restored, soft and rhythmic. In the same year, he performed in Hengyang "Yiyuan" as Zhang Jinsheng in "Jinchuanhui". Because of his Danxing skills, he was able to play the part of the play in which a man dressed up as a woman with great skill and delicacy, which made him famous for a long time. He did not think it was enough, and then worshipped the Ronghua class Qu Rongqing as a teacher, learning "anti-love", "Blue Bridge Club", "Daban Cave", "robbing the bride to lose her sister" and other traditional plays in the text of the military young, year-round performances in Hengyang, Leiyang, Changning, Chenzhou, Hengshan, etc., the work of the art of daily progress.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government set up the Hengyang City Hengyu Opera Task Force, with Zhang Tingyu as its vice-captain. 1955, he took part in the second Hunan Provincial Opera Observatory, playing Wei Kui-Yuan in the opera "Blue Bridge Meeting", which was highly praised by the Chinese Opera Academy's Luo Hanru, Guo Hancheng and other specialists, and was awarded the first prize for the actor. 1956, he took part in a workshop for actors and actresses organized by the Ministry of Culture, and was honored by Mei Mei, who was the first to attend the workshop. In 1956, he attended a workshop for actors organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Central Committee, and was taught by Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, and other masters of the art. 1950, he was selected as the director of the Hengyang City Flower Drum Opera Troupe, and although he had a heavy administrative workload, he still participated in the performances, and no matter whether he played the leading role or the supporting roles, he was very conscientious and meticulous. He has played "Meng Lijun" in the Yuan Chengzong, "Liu Hai play Golden Toad" in the fox sister, "life and death card" in the Huang Boshi, "Golden Scales" in the Zhang Tianshi, raw, Dan, net, ugly, play to the character of the very different. She has a wide range of roles, both for insiders and outsiders. He is also very successful in playing roles in modern theater. He played a retired cadre in
Zhang Tingyu was not highly educated, but he was good at absorbing and innovative. In the early fifties, he learned from Changsha (Xihu tune), and after studying and improving it with musicians, he developed the plate style, replacing the southern and northern routes, and ending the history of flower-drum opera interspersed with Xiang opera's vocal cadence. When rehearsing the "Life and Death Plaque - Farewell Daughter", there was a long section of lyrics, and there was no applicable tune for a while. He created his own (Sanchuan tune) several boards, such as sobbing, very distinctive, has now become one of the preserved cadences of the flower-drum opera in Hengyu.
Zhang Tingyu was a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a director of the Hunan Dramatists Association, and a member of the Hengyang City Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. (1950-1966) Director of the Hengyang City Flower Drum Opera Troupe, he died in 1966 due to illness, leaving behind a record of "The Blue Bridge Meeting". (Source: Hunan Local Drama Series (3) Henzhou Flower Drum Opera)