Overview of Huangmei Opera
Huangmei Opera, formerly known as "Huangmei Tune", is a folk opera formed in the late 18th century in the Anqing area adjacent to the provinces of Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi. In its long process, it has absorbed the musical essence of Qingyang Opera, Hui Opera and other local folk songs and other operas, and gradually formed its own unique style today. Huangmei Opera reads and sings in the language of Anqing, with simple and fluent singing voice, characterized by bright and lyrical feelings, and rich expressive power; the performance of Huangmei Opera is simple and meticulous, and famous for its authenticity and liveliness. Huangmei Opera from the folk, elegant and vulgar **** appreciation, pleasant and pleasant, she is a rich flavor of life and fresh local flavor to infect the audience.
In the early days of Huangmei Opera, most of the repertoire was small plays written and performed by old artists reflecting the life of the grassroots folk. In the 1950s, a large number of intellectuals interested in the cause of opera to join the ranks of the traditional repertoire of Huangmei Opera discovery and re-creation, they joined, greatly enriched the expression of Huangmei Opera, strengthened the Huangmei Opera literature, the development of the cantata and accompaniment, so that the original folklore and popularity to get the qualitative sublimation of the melody is more beautiful, and the influence of the more expanded, Huangmei Opera ushered in the true blossoming of flowers! Huangmei Opera really ushered in the artistic spring of blossoming of a hundred flowers. It was also during this period that a large number of outstanding performers such as Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang, Pan Jingli, and Zhang Yunfeng appeared, and "The Match of Heavenly Immortals", "Female Emperor's Son-in-law", and "The Story of Luopa" were the representative works produced during this period. With the continuous release of many excellent plays, audiences at home and abroad have come to know and accept Huangmei Opera, which has gone from the countryside to the city's elegant halls, and eventually become a famous opera at home and abroad. The repertoire of the theater and the actors have won many awards, many times to Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Germany, Taiwan, the United States, Australia and other countries and regions to perform, won the praise of the cultural pan, by foreign friends as "China's country music".
Proud and glorious has become history, the new century has been looking for the door of hope, today's Anhui Huangmei Opera and emerged such as Malan, Huang Xinde as the representative of many newcomers. In the face of the new century, we are counting on a new generation of Huangmei Opera heirs to carry on the past and carry forward the past and carry on the future, with youth, beauty and wisdom, to create a new brilliant ......
Huangmei Opera's development history
Huangmei Opera is the main local opera genre in Anhui Province. In Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Taiwan and other provinces as well as Hong Kong, there are also professional or amateur performing groups of Huangmei Opera, which are widely welcomed. Huangmei Opera, originally known as "Huangmei Tune", is a folk opera formed in the late 18th century in the adjoining areas of Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi Provinces. One of them gradually moved eastward to the Anqing area centered on Huaining County, Anhui Province, and combined with local folk art, sang and spoke in the local language, forming its own characteristics, known as "Huai Cavity" or "Huai Tune". This is the predecessor of today's Huangmei Opera.
The history of Huangmei Opera is roughly divided into three stages:
The first stage was from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty to around the Xinhai Revolution. Produced and circulated to the Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi Province between the three provinces of tea, Jiangxi tune, Tongcheng tune, Fengyang song, by the local opera (Qingyang cavity, Hui tune) performance of the influence of the folk art of Lianxiang, stilt walkers, dry boat and other folk arts to form a combination, and gradually formed a number of small plays. It further developed and absorbed the performance content and expression from a form of opera called "Luohan Pile", Qingyangqiang and Huizhou tune, and thus produced the original opera with a complete story. There is also a transition form from the small play to the original play, which is called "string play" by the old artists. The so-called "string play" is their own independent and related to each other with a group of small plays, some with things "string", some with people "string". The plot of the "string play" is richer than that of a small play, and the characters have broken through the three small ranges of the clown, the little Dan, and the little boy. Some of the older characters need to be played by the main Dan, the old man, the old clown. This creates the conditions for the creation of this play.
The second stage is from the Xinhai Revolution to 1949. At this stage, Huangmei opera performance activities gradually professionalization, and from the rural grassroots stage on the city stage. After the Huangmei Opera entered the city, it was combined with Peking Opera, and was influenced by Yueju Opera, Yangju Opera, Huaiju Opera, and Pingju Opera from the north (then called "Bopu Opera") in Shanghai, which made great changes in the content and form of performances. A number of new plays were arranged and transplanted, including the serialized plays "Wen Suchen", "Hong Bi Yuan", "Hua Li Yuan", and "The Bee's Tale". In terms of music, preliminary reforms were made to the traditional singing style, reducing the false sound liner notes in the old style, making it bright and smooth, and making it easy for the audience to understand what is being sung. Canceled the help, try the huqin accompaniment. In terms of performance, it absorbed and melted the programmed movements of Peking Opera and other brother operas, enriching the means of expression. Other aspects, such as costumes, make-up and stage settings, were also developed compared with those of the rural stage.
The third stage is from 1949 to the present. 1952, Anqing Huangmei Opera artists went to Shanghai to perform in the plays such as "Beat the Pigweed" and "Blue Bridge Meeting". A large number of actors and actresses were created in the past decades. In addition to Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang and other artists of the older generation who had outstanding achievements in the art of singing of Huangmei Opera, the young and middle-aged actors and actresses, such as Malan and Han Zaifen, successively showed their respective valor on the stage, the silver screen and the TV screen, and aroused the attention of the audience. Yan Fengying and Wang Shaohang co-starred in "The Pairing of Heavenly Immortals," which was made into a movie for the second time and became a sensation at home and abroad.
The Artistic Characteristics of Huangmei Opera
In terms of repertoire, it is said that there are thirty-six major plays and seventy-two minor ones. The main expression of the opera is the people's dissatisfaction with the reality of class oppression, disparity between the rich and the poor and the desire for a free and beautiful life. For example, "Buckwheat", "Sue the grain official", "Tianxian Match", etc. Most of the small plays are about rural laborers. Most of the small plays show the life of rural laborers, such as "point barley", "spinning cotton yarn", "selling bucket".
After the liberation, a number of large and small traditional plays such as "The Match of Heavenly Fairies", "Female Emperor's Son-in-law", "The Story of Luo Pa", "Zhao Guiying", "Tears of a Compassionate Mother" and "Three Searches for the Abbot's Mansion" were arranged and adapted, and the mythological play "Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden", the historical play "Losing the Punishment and Chopping Off the Head", and the modern plays "Spring Flowers Blossom", "Spring Morning in a Small Shop" and "The Beginning of Bei Lei" were created. Among them, "The Match of Heavenly Immortals", "Female Emperor's Son-in-law" and "The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden" were put on the screen one after another, which had a great influence both at home and abroad. Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang, Wu Qiong and Malan are famous actors of Huangmei Opera.
The main categories of Huangmei Opera are flower cadence and flat words. Flower cadences are mainly used in small plays, rich in life and folk song flavor. Pingyin, the main singing voice in the opera, is often used in large sections of narrative, lyric, rich in flavor, such as clouds and flowing water.
The excellent repertoire of Huangmei Opera includes "The Match of Heavenly Fairies", "The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden", "The Story of Sophora", "Female Emperor's Son-in-law", "Husband and Wife Watching the Lights", "Hitting the Grass of the Pig", "The Well of the Willow Tree", "The Meeting of the Blue Bridge", "The Road Encounter" and so on.
The name and origin of Huangmei Opera (quoted from the research article of Mr. Wu Gongmin, a famous theorist of Huangmei Opera)
Huangmei Opera has two major vocal systems---flower cadence system, and flat word system. The Flower Cavity System is derived from the folk songs and ditties, and belongs to the song system; the Flat Lyric System is derived from the Gao Cavity, Bouncing Lyrics, Luohan Pile, Daoxiang, Blowing Cavity, Hui Tune, Peking Opera and other vocal cadences, and belongs to the Plate Cavity System. These two major vocal systems are rooted in the soil of the Anqing region. The performance form of Huangmei Opera has gradually formed its own style on the basis of learning and borrowing from Kunqu, Peking Opera, Hui Opera and other major operas.
Early Huangmei Opera practitioners, achievements, and historical records of the Huangmei Opera veteran artists, the vast majority of them are people in the Anqing area. For example, Cai Zhongxian (the earliest known Huangmei opera actor, born in 1821, Wangjiang County), Hu Pusai (the earliest Huangmei opera actress, born in 1821, Taihu County), Hong Haibo (Qingshan County), Ye Bingchi (Dongzhi County), blame the Shuangyin (Huaining County), Hu Yuting (Wangjiang County), Long Kunyu (Wangjiang County), Cheng Jixian (Guichi County), Cha Wenyan (Huaining County), Ding Yongquan (Huaining County), Pan Yongquan (Huaining County), and Cheng Jixian (Guichi County). (a native of Huaining County), Pan Zehai (a native of Anqing City), and Yan Fengying (a native of Luoling, Tongcheng City), all of whom had a teacher relationship with each other.
Before the founding of the PRC, there was no literati intervention in Huangmei Opera, and the vast majority of the more than one hundred small and large traditional repertoires that were performed were transplanted from the Qingyang Opera, the Yuexi Gaoqiang Opera, the Peking Opera, and the Hui Opera.
Through the above discussion on the formation of the sound of Huangmei Opera, the repertoire of the accumulation of the trace, the actors and actresses of the master of the relationship between the trace as well as the overall grasp of Huangmei Opera history and development, we have a clearer understanding of the development of Huangmei Opera drama, a clearer understanding of the general picture. The source of Huangmei Opera is in the Anqing area, Huangmei Opera was born in the Anqing area, grew in the Anqing area, flourished in the Anqing area. Vocal system is an important symbol of a play, any play and the formation of the vocal system attached to the play, there is a continuous absorption, borrowing, integration, abandonment, transformation, circulation, constantly adapted to the aesthetic needs of the audience, the accumulation of difficult and complex process of creation. In the process of maturing, there must be a certain kind or several kinds of music materials that have a relationship with this kind of theater in terms of cultural background, humanistic environment, aesthetic tendency, life customs, etc., which is an important nutrient for this kind of theater, thus accelerating the formation of this kind of theater. If we compare a genre to a river, then a certain type or types of music materials that give birth to the maturity of the genre can only be considered as tributaries that flow into the river along the way. Huangmei Opera's relationship with Huangmei Caicha Tune is the same as the relationship between the river and the tributaries, Huangmei Caicha Tune is an important factor contributing to the maturity of Huangmei Opera, but never the source of Huangmei Opera.
Historical records of the origin of Huangmei Opera Mr. Lu Hongfei in the book "Huangmei Opera Origin and Flow", the origin of Huangmei Opera lists several legends.
Legend -: "Huangmei Opera was developed on the basis of 'Huaining accent'. ...... Whenever the spring planting and autumn harvest, the farmers used to sing 'Huai tune mountain song' to celebrate the harvest of their labor. This kind of folk beautiful lyrical mountain song ditty, collectively known as 'Huai Ning tune'."
Legend No. 2: "...... Huangmei opera originated in Anqing, Anhui Province. Once upon a time, every yellow plum season, often flooding, four farmers in order to pray for a good year, will be held at this time to welcome the gods, there will be a variety of songs and dances sung in this form of song and dance singing form on the basis of a form of opera, because of the season with the yellow plum season, so the name is 'Huangmei tune'."
Legend No. 3: "Huangmei Opera originated in Huangmei County, Hubei, from the folk songs of Huangmei Tea Casting Tune."
The above three legends, I think the first two legends are more in line with the historical reality, the latter legend is far-fetched, many people because of the Huangmei Opera and Huangmei County with the same word homophonic and convergence of the Huangmei Opera originated in Huangmei County. Of course, some experts have also analyzed from the music, repertoire, teacher level, deduction, that the Huangmei Opera originated in Huangmei tea ceremony, but the arguments put forward, the argument is not persuasive, they also admitted that due to the lack of information available, so, can not ultimately form a definitive conclusion. As for where the Huangmei Opera actually originated from, few people are interested in exploring the research. This is not only a long time ago, the original lack of written information, some of the understanding of the situation of the old artists have also died, and no financial support for the reason, but also with the general attitude of indifference to the origins of Huangmei Opera.
I thought, Huangmei Opera after generations of painstaking creative development, has been from a little-known folk play, a leap into the nationally renowned opera, and in the overall shrinking of the opera situation, still maintains a good development trend, thanks to the Huangmei Opera's popular, popular artistic character and the spirit of innovation and advance with the times. We can not only focus our attention on today's achievements, and ignore the Huangmei Opera stormy road. If even has been to Huangmei Opera for the hometown of Anqing people, can not say that the origin of the Huangmei Opera, is not the suspicion of forgetting their ancestors? Moreover, clarify the source of the play, find our *** with the spiritual home, arouse people's sense of identity and pride in Huangmei Opera, the source, and further cohesion and pioneering, but also the sustained development of Huangmei Opera in the new century.
1. Yan Fengying hometown: Anqing City, Anhui Province, Luoling Town, Huangmei Village, Yan Zhuang relevant please refer to its hometown website on the introduction of Yan Fengying
2. Huangmei Opera hometown of Anqing City, Anhui Province, will be held in November 2006, the fourth sector of the Huangmei Opera Festival, welcome to participate in the people of the sea.