Gaoqiang Opera

Ⅳ-7Traditional OperaSongyang, ZhejiangBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Gaoqiang is the collective name for a group of operatic genres distinguished by several vocal styles, derived in the course of evolution from the Yiyang qiang of the Ming dynasty and the later Qingyang qiang. It began in the Ming dynasty, taking the local miscellaneous drama (zaju) of Songyang as its base and absorbing artistic elements from outside vocal styles such as Kunqiang before finally taking shape; it reached its height during the Qianlong to Guangxu reigns of the Qing dynasty. In its early period the role types of Songyang gaoqiang were divided into eight — sheng, dan, jing, chou, xiao, tie, wai and fu; since the late Qing it has added such types as erdan, zuodan, laowai, erhua and sihua. In the 1950s and the 1980s, the relevant departments at provincial, municipal and county level in Zhejiang Province undertook several times over the recovery, inheritance, excavation and collation of Songyang gaoqiang, and achieved preliminary results.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Over several centuries of evolution the branches of Yiyang qiang underwent great change, combining in varying degrees with local folk music, and so the gaoqiang of each locality came to have its own musical character. Songyang gaoqiang is one of the oldest operatic genres still surviving in Zhejiang Province, an independent branch of the eight major gaoqiang systems of Zhejiang and a single-vocal-style genre. Because the Baishagang gaoqiang troupe of Yuyan Town, Songyang County has performed Songyang gaoqiang without interruption, this vocal style occupies a prominent place in its transmission; Songyang gaoqiang is therefore also called the local tune of Baishagang, and is known to the local people simply as gaoqiang. Songyang gaoqiang preserves the original state of xiqu theatre, and is characterised by beautiful melodies and plain, unadorned forms. Its vocal style belongs to the tune-pattern linked form, but in performance the sentence patterns and the ci patterns may change freely as occasion requires; in the course of melodic progression it commonly uses interjections such as yi, ya, a and ha, and forms the chorus by raising the voice an octave higher, creating a distinctive style of singing. Songyang gaoqiang uses wind-and-string accompaniment, which makes it a rather special case within the gaoqiang system; its instruments include clappers, drums, flutes, suona, erhu, small gongs, large gongs and big cymbals. It originally had more than one hundred tune patterns, of which more than seventy have been preserved. Since the first troupe was founded, Songyang gaoqiang performers have been handed down from generation to generation, and twenty-three generations have now been transmitted; its performance carries the distinctive character of folk art and gives off a strong local flavour. More than forty Songyang gaoqiang plays survive, among them Furen Xi, San Zhuangyuan, Baxian Qiao, Maishui Ji, Liyu Ji, Huozhu Ji and Jiulou Shajia are the representative works.