Yuediao

01 · Historical Records

Yuediao began to spread in places such as Nanyang during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty; it afterwards gradually evolved into a specialised vocal operatic genre and became flourishing towards the end of the Qing.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Yuediao, also called siguxian (four-string fiddle), is an ancient opera genre of Henan Province, circulating mainly in southern Shaanxi, northern Hubei, western Anhui, Shandong and other parts of Henan, and it has a certain influence nationwide. Once the genre had formed, it was performed in three main forms: Yuediao shadow puppetry, Yuediao glove puppetry and full-scale Yuediao opera troupes. In its long course of development Yuediao accumulated more than five hundred traditional plays, and it is especially famed for its Three Kingdoms plays. Representative repertoire includes The Capture of Jiang Wei, Attacking Southern Tang, Wuning Prefecture, Li Tianbao's Mourning, Old Madam Bai Gets Drunk, Li Shuangxi Borrows Grain, The Embroidered Tower in Flames and Zhuge Liang's Mourning. Yuediao originated from the tune-pattern (qupai) system and later added the ban-style (banqiang) system, becoming a unique genre in which the two are combined. Its ban styles include manban (slow ban), liushui (running water), tongqidiao (bronze tune), zanzi, daoban (lead-in), feiban (fast ban), jindamanchang (tight beating, slow singing), kuqiang (weeping style), chuiqiang (blowing style) and zadiao (miscellaneous tunes). Yuediao has more than two hundred tune patterns, most of them taken from other opera genres and from folk music, divided into flute patterns and string patterns. The principal Yuediao vocal style is “yuediao” itself, and it also sings chuiqiang, kunqiang and qijuban from time to time. Its style is distinctive: high-pitched and bright, mellow and simple, with clear diction, using the syllable in place of the tone and transmitting feeling through the voice. There is laughter within the singing and singing within the laughter; it is at its best both in stirring and tragic, impassioned passages and in expressing deep, gentle, plaintive emotion, and it carries the character and rustic flavour of folk music of the central plains. The vocal art of Yuediao is rich, with its own character in role types and its own repertoire of conventional ban styles. Performers sing in their natural voice, supported by falsetto, and the principal tone of the jing (painted-face) role lies a fifth higher than that of the other role types. The accompaniment is divided into the civil (wenchang) and martial (wuchang) sides. The civil instruments include the zhuihu, dizi, erhu, suona, sanxian, pipa and menzi; the martial instruments include the ban drum, the large and small gongs and the hall drum. Yuediao has a complete set of role types, including the large red face, the second red face, wen sheng, wu sheng, great jing, second-mao role, three-flower face, zhengdan, huadan, guimendan, langdan, wudan, laodan and a dozen others, each with its own vivid individual colouring. In long practice on the stage there grew up a number of famous schools of performance represented by Shen Fengmei and Mao Ailian. In the course of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy Yuediao advanced with great difficulty and grew steadily worse; the heartening scene of the past, when “gongs and drums filled the city and ten thousand people were fascinated, and every village had Yuediao opera”, has long since vanished.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yuediao circulates mainly in southern Shaanxi, northern Hubei, western Anhui, Shandong and other parts of Henan. After the genre formed it was long performed in three forms: Yuediao shadow puppetry, Yuediao glove puppetry and full-scale Yuediao opera troupes. Within Henan Province the troupe centres are the areas of Zhoukou, Xuchang and Nanyang; the Henan Province Yuediao Opera Troupe and the Xuchang City Yuediao Opera Troupe are the only two professional performing troupes still existing, and celebrated performers such as Shen Fengmei and Mao Ailian each represent a different line of performance.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Yuediao · Yuediao · Yuediao.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Yuediao vividly reflects the social life of the central plains and is of important value for research into social history and art history. Today only two professional performing troupes remain in the whole of Henan Province, the Henan Province Yuediao Opera Troupe and the Xuchang City Yuediao Opera Troupe; funding is scarce, new plays are hard to produce, and artistic talent is running out as older generations leave. What is urgently needed is to intensify policy support and mobilise all forces to rescue and protect it; the first priority is to carry out emergency salvage of the secret skills of the old artists. He Quanzhi (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): a man of the Han ethnicity, born in 1936 in Shangshui, Henan Province. He Quanzhi entered the Henan Province Yuediao Opera Troupe at the age of fifteen and studied successively under the noted Yuediao performing artists Zhang Xiuqing, Li Jinshan and others, coming to master fairly comprehensively the vocal styles and performance characteristics of Yuediao. His stage appearance is handsome and graceful, his range of roles is broad, his technique is deft, and his voice is rich and full of passion. His representative works include The Capture of Jiang Wei, The Stone Stele, The Reed Marsh and Driven Up the Mountain. He is a representative inheritor of Yuediao in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects and a first-class performer.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• He Quanzhi 02-0493
• Mao Ailian 03-1001
• Yuan Xiulian 05-2324
• Ye Xiangcheng 05-2325
• Shenxiaomei

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yuediao (Zhoukou, Henan) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. He Quanzhi · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗