Song Ziwu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Song Ziwu, Male, Unspecified, from Hua, Henan, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Daxian Opera (Ⅳ-44). The tradition is documented in Hua, Henan. Within the regional tradition and school record of Daxian Opera in Hua, Henan: Daxian opera, formerly called the Gongxing troupe and also called Xianzi opera, is centred on Kaifeng and Puyang in Henan Province and is current in north-eastern Henan, southern Hebei and south-western Shandong. In northern Henan it formed the two professional performing centres of Puyang and Huaxian, which carry on different mentou (lineage schools) and qupai systems respectively; since the 1990s, as entertainment programmes have grown ever more varied, the performance market for Daxian opera has continually contracted, and these two troupes have become the last living carriers of this ancient genre. Daxian opera is generally held to have a certain connection with the Liyuanxi (Pear Garden play) of the Tang court, and in the course of its evolution and development it also inherited the tradition of the northern ququ of Song-Yuan zaju. Since the 1990s, as entertainment programmes have grown ever more varied, the performance market for Daxian opera has continually contracted.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1940 in Cao County, Shandong Province. In 1954 he became a disciple of Yang Mingxue at the Heze Daxian Opera Troupe in Shandong, learning the art of Daxian Opera; he specialized in hei (black-face), hong (red-face) and laosheng (old male) roles while also performing wusheng (martial male) and chou (clown) roles. His vocal art fuses the essential features of the Shandong, Puyang and Hua County tunes and of the Daluo opera; adapting to his own qualities and to the characteristics of the Daxian Opera genre, he employed a variety of rhythmic forms to shape the qupai (tune titles), giving simple melody and rhythm to a rich and varied vocal art. He sang mainly in the full natural voice with the secondary voice in support, articulating the words before projecting the tune, with two vocal turns to a single phrase. He has solid basic skills, his acting is finely detailed and precise, and his Dahongquan boxing postures are properly standardized. Within the documented technical tradition of Daxian Opera in Hua, Henan: Daxian opera, formerly called the Gongxing troupe and also called Xianzi opera, is an ancient and rare multi-vocal-style genre; it is centred on Kaifeng and Puyang in Henan Province and is current in north-eastern Henan, southern Hebei and south-western Shandong. Daxian opera once had more than five hundred plays, of which about a hundred survive; their content centres on the struggle between loyal and treacherous ministers, on warfare and campaigns, and on ridding the people of local tyrants. Its representative plays include Rebelling at Five Passes, Black Stone Pass, The Yang Mansion Selects Generals, The Battle of Luoyang, Marching Down to Southern Tang, Sun Wuzi Raises an Army, Yellow Flower Temple, The Romance of the Western Chamber and Liangjia Mountain. The vocal music of Daxian opera belongs to the qupai (tune-pattern) system and consists mainly of five great suites such as Hailihua and Jiangtou Jingui together with sanqu such as Shanpo Yang and Bubu Jiao; in addition it has taken in part of the music of the Qingyangqiang, Shipaiqiang, xiansuo gaoqiang, Luoluoqiang and other folk suqu and xiaoling. It has more than four hundred qupai of all kinds, of which one hundred and eighty-odd have now been excavated and collated. The accompaniment of Daxian opera is divided into ruichang (soft field) and yingchang (hard field). The principal instruments of the soft field include the sanxian, xidi, dadi, hengdi and sheng; the xidi is an instrument peculiar to Daxian opera, and pieces accompanied by it are called xiqu (fine pieces), while those accompanied by the dadi, dizi and hengdi are called cuqu (coarse pieces). The hard field, besides the ordinary percussion instruments, also uses the sida shan (four great fans), the jianzi hao and the luohao (conch horn), to bring out a tense and stirring atmosphere. In the vocal style of Daxian opera the qupai change very frequently and the pitch intervals leap widely; the actors enunciate the words in the true (natural) voice, while the drawn-out passages are carried in the falsetto. The role types of Daxian opera are divided into five sheng, five dan and five painted-face types, and the painted-face designs are delicate and carefully worked out, rich in individuality. To this day Daxian opera still preserves in its original flavour the traditional “tiaojiaguan” play as well as the “huaji xi” (comic play), “shuanchu yanduan” and “chibo xi” of Song-Yuan zaju; its performance takes the plum-blossom boxing and hong boxing as its framework, and is rough, fiery, archaic and of deep power. The movement and special-skill passages are staged with real weapons and real danger, thrilling and stirring; some of the tour-de-force skills such as “xiao liuchuan” (shaving the willow pole), “da wubacai”, “da shangdiao”, “shui sankongqiao” and “zawa” leave the audience involuntarily exclaiming. At present Henan has only two professional performing troupes, the Puyang Daxian Opera Troupe and the Huaxian Daxian Opera Troupe. Because funding is tight, the actors' income has fallen year by year, the conditions for survival and performance have deteriorated sharply, performing talent is running out, and many plays, qupai and special skills have been lost. Some one hundred qupai and more than two hundred plays now await excavation; only one person still masters the great Tang-Song suites and the qupai music of Daxian opera, and he is already close to seventy, so protection is urgently needed. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Rebelling at Five Passes": Daxian opera once had more than five hundred plays, of which about a hundred survive; their content centres on the struggle between loyal and treacherous ministers, on warfare and campaigns, and on ridding the people of local tyrants. Its representative plays include Rebelling at Five Passes, Black Stone Pass, The Yang Mansion Selects Generals, The Battle of Luoyang, Marching Down to Southern Tang, Sun Wuzi Raises an Army, Yellow Flower Temple, The Romance of the Western Chamber and Liangjia Mountain. "Black Stone Pass": Daxian opera once had more than five hundred plays, of which about a hundred survive; their content centres on the struggle between loyal and treacherous ministers, on warfare and campaigns, and on ridding the people of local tyrants. Its representative plays include Rebelling at Five Passes, Black Stone Pass, The Yang Mansion Selects Generals, The Battle of Luoyang, Marching Down to Southern Tang, Sun Wuzi Raises an Army, Yellow Flower Temple, The Romance of the Western Chamber and Liangjia Mountain. "The Yang Mansion Selects Generals": Daxian opera once had more than five hundred plays, of which about a hundred survive; their content centres on the struggle between loyal and treacherous ministers, on warfare and campaigns, and on ridding the people of local tyrants. Its representative plays include Rebelling at Five Passes, Black Stone Pass, The Yang Mansion Selects Generals, The Battle of Luoyang, Marching Down to Southern Tang, Sun Wuzi Raises an Army, Yellow Flower Temple, The Romance of the Western Chamber and Liangjia Mountain. "The Battle of Luoyang": Daxian opera once had more than five hundred plays, of which about a hundred survive; their content centres on the struggle between loyal and treacherous ministers, on warfare and campaigns, and on ridding the people of local tyrants. Its representative plays include Rebelling at Five Passes, Black Stone Pass, The Yang Mansion Selects Generals, The Battle of Luoyang, Marching Down to Southern Tang, Sun Wuzi Raises an Army, Yellow Flower Temple, The Romance of the Western Chamber and Liangjia Mountain.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Daxian Opera, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He began teaching early: from 1962, when he taught at the Heze Daxian Opera school in Shandong, he trained more than two hundred students of various kinds.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Song Ziwu · National Representative Bearer Archive