Huangmei Opera, formerly known as "Huangmei Tune", is a folk opera that was formed in Anqing area of Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces in the late18th century. In its long process, it constantly absorbed the musical essence of local folk songs and other operas such as Qingyang Opera and Huizhou Opera, and gradually formed its own unique style today. Huangmei opera is sung in Anqing language, with simple and smooth singing, lively and lyrical, and rich expressive force; Huangmei Opera's performance is simple and meticulous, and it is famous for its authenticity and vividness. Huangmei opera, from the folk, enjoys both elegance and popularity and is enjoyable. It infects the audience with its rich flavor of life and fresh local flavor.
The early Huangmei operas were mostly small plays written and performed by old artists, reflecting the bottom folk life. In 1950s, a large number of intellectuals who were interested in traditional Chinese opera devoted themselves to the exploration and re-creation of Huangmei Opera. Their participation has greatly enriched the expression of Huangmei Opera, enhanced its literariness, developed its aria and accompaniment, and made its original folk and popularity qualitatively sublimated, with more beautiful melody and expanded influence. Huangmei Opera has truly ushered in the artistic spring of letting a hundred flowers blossom and bringing forth the new. That is to say, a large number of outstanding performers appeared in this period, such as "Fairy Descent", "Woman Xu" and "The Story of Roper" are the representative works produced in this period. With the continuous introduction of many excellent plays and the recognition and acceptance of Huangmei Opera by domestic and foreign audiences, Huangmei Opera rose from the grass-roots team in the countryside to the elegant palace in the city, and finally became a famous drama at home and abroad. Our theater has won numerous awards for its plays and actors, and has performed in Hongkong, Macau, Singapore, Germany, Taiwan Province Province, the United States, Australia and other countries and regions for many times, winning wide acclaim and being praised as "China's country music" by foreign friends.
Pride and glory have become history, and the new century has opened the door of hope. Nowadays, there are many new people in Huangmei Opera, such as Malan and Huang Xinde. Facing the new century, we hope that the successors of Huangmei Opera will carry forward the past and create new glories with youth, beauty and wisdom. ...
The development history of Huangmei opera
Huangmei Opera is the main local opera in Anhui Province. Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Taiwan Province and Hongkong all have professional or amateur Huangmei Opera performance groups, which are widely welcomed. Huangmei Opera, formerly known as Huangmeidiao, is a folk opera that was formed in the neighboring areas of Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces in the late18th century. One of them gradually moved eastward to Anqing, Anhui Province, and combined with local folk arts, sang and spoke in the local language, forming its own characteristics, called "Huaiqiang" or "Huaidiao". This is the predecessor of Huangmei Opera today.
The development history of Huangmei Opera can be roughly divided into three stages:
The first stage, from the late Qing Dynasty to the Revolution of 1911. Tea-picking tunes, Jiangxi tunes, Tongcheng tunes and Fengyang tunes, which originated and spread to Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi, were influenced by local operas (Qingyang tunes and Huizhou tunes) and combined with folk arts such as Lianxiang, stilts and dry boats, and gradually formed some small operas. Further development, it absorbed the performance content and forms of folk art form "Luohanzhuang" and Qingyang tune and Huizhou tune, thus producing a complete story. There is also a transitional form from small play to this kind of play, which is called "string play" by old artists. The so-called "string play" is a group of small plays that are both independent and interrelated, some of which are "strung" by things and some are "strung" by people. The story of "cross-dressing" is richer than that of a small play, and the characters appear in it have also broken through three small areas: Clown, Xiao Dan and Xiao Sheng. Some old roles need to be played by Zheng Dan, Lao Sheng and Lao Ugly. This created conditions for the production of this play.
The second stage is from the Revolution of 1911 to 1949. At this stage, Huangmei Opera gradually moved towards professionalism, and stepped onto the urban stage from the rural grass-roots team. After Huangmei Opera entered the city, it was combined with Beijing Opera, and was influenced by Yue Opera, Yang Opera, Huai Opera and Pingju Opera from the north in Shanghai. Great changes have taken place in both content and form. A number of new plays have been arranged and transplanted, including the series Wen, Hong Bi Yuan, Gorgeous Garden and The Tale of Bees. In music, the traditional singing method has been reformed, which reduces the empty talk in the old cavity, makes it bright and smooth, and makes the audience easy to understand the singing content. Cancel the help and try to accompany Hu Qin. In terms of performance, it absorbed and integrated the procedural movements of Peking Opera and other brother operas, enriching the means of expression. Others, such as clothing, make-up, stage setting, etc., have also developed compared with rural areas.
The third stage is 1949. 1952, Huangmei Opera artists in Anqing performed in Shanghai with plays such as "Beating Pig Grass" and "Blue Bridge Club". For decades, a large number of actors have been trained. Besides Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang and other artists of the older generation have made outstanding achievements in the singing art of Huangmei Opera, Ma Lan, Han Zaifen and other young and middle-aged actors have also shown their heroic roles on stage, screen and TV screen, attracting the audience's attention. Yan Fengying and Wang Shaohang co-starred in "A Match Made in Heaven", which was made into a movie twice and caused a sensation at home and abroad.
The Artistic Features of Huangmei Opera
In terms of repertoire, it is known as "36 major dramas, 72% off small dramas". The play mainly shows the people's dissatisfaction with class oppression, the disparity between the rich and the poor and their yearning for a free and beautiful life. For example, The Story of Buckwheat, Guan, Tian Xianpei, etc. Traditional Chinese operas mostly show the life segments of rural laborers, such as ordering barley, spinning cotton yarn and selling buckets.
After liberation, a number of traditional plays such as Fairy Descent, Ma Xu, Luo Afraid, Zhao, Mother's Tears, Three Searches for the State House have been adapted successively, and a number of dramas such as Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Historical Drama, Modern Drama and Spring Blossom have been created. Among them, Fairy Descent, Female Xu and Cowherd and Weaver Girl have been put on the screen one after another, which has had a great influence at home and abroad. Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang, Wu Qiong and Malan are famous actors in Huangmei Opera.
Huangmei opera mainly includes coloratura and pingtan. Coloratura mainly plays small plays, full of life and folk songs. The main lyrics in the original drama are often long descriptions and lyricism, with rich charm, such as flowing water.
The outstanding plays of Huangmei Opera include The Fairy Couple, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Huaiyin Story, Female Xu, Watching the Lantern Couple, Beating Pig Grass, Liujingzi, Blue Bridge Society and Lu Yu.
The name and source of Huangmei Opera (quoted from the research article of Mr. Wu, a famous theorist of Huangmei Opera)
Huangmei Opera has two big cavity systems-coloratura system and Pingci system. The coloratura system is born out of folk songs and belongs to Qupai style. The system of Pingci originated from Gao Qiang, Tanci, Luohanzhuang, Daoqing, Chuiqiang, Hui Diao and Peking Opera, and belongs to Banqiang. These two cavity systems are rooted in the cavity soil in Anqing area. On the basis of learning from Kunqu Opera, Peking Opera and Huizhou Opera, the performance form of Huangmei Opera has gradually formed its own style.
Among the early Huangmei opera practitioners, most of the old Huangmei opera artists with achievements and historical records came from Anqing area. For example, Cai Zhongxian (the earliest known actress of Huangmei Opera, 182 1 was born in Wangjiang County), Hu Puya (the earliest actress of Huangmei Opera, 182 1 was born in Taihu County), Hong Haibo (born in Qianshan County) and Ye Bingchi (.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Huangmei Opera was conducted without the intervention of literati, and most of the traditional plays in this number were transplanted to Qingyang Opera, Yuexi Gaoqiang Opera, Peking Opera and Huizhou Opera.
Through the above discussion on the formation of Huangmei Opera's vocal cavity, the tracing of repertoire accumulation, the tracing of the relationship between actors and teachers, and the overall grasp of the historical evolution and development of Huangmei Opera, we have a clearer understanding of the development of Huangmei Opera. Huangmei Opera originated in Anqing, where it was born, grew and prospered. The vocal cavity system is an important symbol of a drama. The formation of any drama and its vocal cavity system has a process of continuous absorption, reference, integration, sublation, transformation, circulation, continuous adaptation to the aesthetic needs of the audience, and difficult and complicated accumulation and creation. In this process of continuous maturity, there must be one or more musical materials related to this drama, such as cultural background, humanistic environment, aesthetic trend and life customs, which are important nutrients of this drama, thus accelerating the formation of this drama. If a drama is compared to a river, then the musical material or material that gave birth to the maturity of this drama can only be regarded as a tributary of that river along the way. The relationship between Huangmei Opera and Huangmei Tea Picking Tone is just like the relationship between rivers and tributaries. Huangmei tea picking tune is an important factor to promote the maturity of Huangmei opera, but it is by no means the source of Huangmei opera.
In the book The Origin of Huangmei Opera, Mr. Lu listed several legends about the origin of Huangmei Opera.
Legend: "Huangmei Opera is developed on the basis of Huaining Opera. ..... Whenever spring is planted and autumn is harvested, farmers are used to singing' Huaidiao Folk Songs' to celebrate the harvest of their labor. This beautiful and lyrical folk song minor is collectively called' Huaining Tune'. "
Legend 2: "... Huangmei Opera originated in Anqing, Anhui. In the past, every Huangmei season was often flooded, and farmers in the four townships would hold worship meetings at this time to pray for a bumper harvest. There were various song and dance performances at the meeting, and a form of opera based on this song and dance performance was named' Huangmei Tune' because it was related to Huangmei season. "
Legend 3: "Huangmei Opera originated from the folk song tune of Huangmei County, Hubei Province, that is, Huangmei tea-picking tune."
Of the above three legends, I think the first two legends are more in line with the historical truth, while the latter seems far-fetched. Many people tend to agree that Huangmei Opera originated in Huangmei County because it is homophonic with Huangmei County. Of course, some experts have analyzed and inferred that Huangmei Opera originated from Huangmei tea-picking tune from the aspects of music, repertoire, teacher inheritance, etc., but the arguments and arguments put forward are not convincing, and they also admit that due to the lack of reference materials, it is impossible to form a conclusion. As for where Huangmei Opera originated, few people are interested in exploring it. This is not only because of the long history and lack of written materials, but also because some old artists who know the situation have died one after another and have no financial support. It is also related to people's general indifference to the origin of Huangmei Opera.
In my opinion, Huangmei Opera, after hard creation and development from generation to generation, has jumped from a little-known folk opera to a national famous opera, and still maintained a good development trend under the overall decline of opera, which benefited from the popularization and promotion of Huangmei Opera's artistic character and innovative spirit of keeping pace with the times. We can't just focus on today's achievements and ignore the hard course of Huangmei Opera. If even Anqing people who have always used Huangmei Opera as their hometown opera can't tell the origin of Huangmei Opera, isn't it suspected of forgetting their ancestors? Furthermore, it is also the sustainable development of Huangmei Opera in the new century to clarify the source of the opera, find our spiritual home, arouse people's sense of identity and pride in Huangmei Opera, eradicate the root causes and further concentrate on pioneering and enterprising.
1. Yan Fengying's hometown: Yan, Huangmei Village, Luoling Town, Anqing City, Anhui Province. Please refer to the introduction on Yan Fengying's hometown website.
2. Anqing City, Anhui Province, the hometown of Huangmei Opera, will hold the 4th Huangmei Opera Art Festival in 2006 10/65438. People at home and abroad are welcome to attend.