The historical origins of the stage system of opera performances

① There is a long tradition in the up and down format and virtual techniques. Long before the formation of opera, the folk song and dance "Waking Girl" performed in the square used the "entrance" of the performers as a means to introduce characters and develop the plot. This was the prototype of the entry and exit form. In the Song Dynasty, there were new developments. For example, "Sword Dance" further used the upper and lower scenes as a hub to divide scenes into segments and express changes in the story. Song Zaju and Jin Yuan's novels have used this more extensively, so Su Dongpo has this poem: "Reenacting ancient and modern events, entering and exiting the ghost gate." The ghost gate refers to the upper and lower gates. As a technique, virtuality can also find its origins in traditional song and dance performances. The Tang Dynasty Duan'an Festival "Dialing the Head" shows a young man going into the mountains to find the body of his father who was injured by a tiger. There are eight twists and turns in the mountain, and there are eight folds of the old song. The actor uses virtual dance movements to express the twists and turns of entering the deep mountains on the spot. scene. According to records such as "Old Martial Arts", the Lantern Festival dance teams of the Song Dynasty include dances that imitate horseback riding or rowing, such as "Male and Female Bamboo Horses" and "Dry Boating", as well as dance teams such as "Sun Wuzi teaches female soldiers" and "Lion and Leopard Barbaric Pai". Programs that express battle scenes such as formations and confrontations through transformation and martial arts skills are the original forms of virtual actions such as holding a whip instead of a horse, rowing an oar instead of a boat, and some collective martial arts scenes in opera. ② The detachment of the concept of time and space on the opera stage is closely related to art such as rap. In the early stages of its formation, opera often drew themes from the art of rap and rap, and at the same time inevitably accepted some of its structural forms. The endorsement part in rap can be directly transformed into a stage image due to its performance elements; the narrative element in rap is combined with traditional entrance and exit forms, virtual techniques, rich and diverse dance formation changes, and even various martial arts skills. Transformed into an important part of the stage performance format. This is a transformation process in which content seeks form and form adapts to content. It is also an inevitable outcome of historical development.

This transformation process can be roughly glimpsed from the scripts of the Southern Opera "Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan" and the drama "The Romance of the West Chamber". In the early stages of transformation, there will inevitably be stiffness and immaturity, but in the future it will become more natural and mature. There are often multiple spaces in Northern operas, including various scenes such as boating on the river, marching and fighting; in the later Southern opera "Moon Worship Pavilion: Violating the Fire", it was explained concisely and hierarchically through seven consecutive entrances and exits. It tells the whole process of Wang Ruilan and her daughter and Jiang Shilong's brother and sister hurriedly running away in the chaos of war and being dispersed by the rebels. The turbulent atmosphere of the war is very intense, and the music structure is also quite complete, showing that the use of the dividing system has reached a proficient level. . The development process of this system has continued to the present, with more diverse expression techniques and increasingly mature techniques. These facts show that the opera’s detached view of time and space and virtual techniques, as well as the division system formed by the combination of the two, come from the profound tradition of national and folk art. When various arts such as singing, dancing, opera, and rap still existed as independent artistic varieties, they had already been widely circulated among the people and were loved by the people; when they were combined to express a large set of stories, they would inevitably be more Loved by the masses. This combination was naive and rough at the beginning. However, in the long-term development process, through the continuous creation of folk artists of all generations, it has formed into a principle or law of artistic expression, and has been understood and mastered by the people. , resulting in a powerful vitality. This is the reason why opera has always had the quality of narrative poetry, and has developed along this track into a unique stage structure system, becoming one of the important factors that constitute the national style of opera.