Huiju Opera

01 · Historical Records

Hui opera took shape at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing. After the luantan vocal style was brought into Anhui it combined with local vocal styles and folk music, forming the bozi in Shipai, Zongyang, Tongcheng and other places of Anqing Prefecture; during the Qianlong reign the bozi gradually fused with the chuiqiang evolved from the sipingqiang, forming the erhuang; the erhuang in turn combined with the Hubei xipi as the pihuang ensemble, laying the foundation of Hui opera.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Hui opera is an important local operatic vocal style, mainly current within Anhui Province and around Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province. At the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing the luantan vocal style was brought into Anhui and, combining with local vocal styles and folk music, formed the bozi in Shipai, Zongyang, Tongcheng and other places of Anqing Prefecture. During the Qianlong reign the bozi gradually fused with the chuiqiang evolved from the sipingqiang, forming the erhuang. The erhuang in turn formed the pihuang ensemble together with the Hubei xipi, laying the foundation of Hui opera. The music and vocal styles of Hui opera fall into such categories as Hui-Kun, chuiqiang, bozi, erhuang, xipi and huachang xiaodiao (florid-tunes ditties). Hui-Kun is played mainly as martial plays, using much suona, gong and drum, with a grand manner; chuiqiang combines the qupai (tune-pattern) form with the banqiang form, using the flute and the small suona as leading instruments; bozi keeps time with a jujube-wood clapper and is accompanied by suona, flute and huihu; erhuang takes the huihu as its leading instrument and has ban styles such as daoban, yuanban, huilong and liushui; xipi likewise uses the huihu as its leading instrument and has ban styles such as the wenwu daoban, sanban, yaoban and erliu; huachang xiaodiao consists mainly of folk ditties and is rich in the flavour of everyday life. The role types of Hui opera include mo, sheng, xiaosheng, wai, dan, tie, jing and chou; its performance is fiery and ardent, heroic in spirit and broad in movement, and it is especially adept at martial plays, with such feats as flipping over the stage platform (fantaizi), leaping through the ring (tiaoquan), running through fire (chuanhuo), the flying fork (feicha), the rolling lamp (gundeng) and face-changing (bianlian). Hui opera has a rich traditional repertoire: its Hui-Kun plays are mainly martial pieces such as The Seven Captures of Meng Huo, The Eight-Formation Diagram, Badaling, Heroic Righteousness, Toppling the Bronze Banner and White Deer Blood; its Kun-Yi plays include Zhaojun Chusai (Zhaojun Goes Beyond the Frontier), The Drunken Imperial Concubine and Luhua Xu (Reed Catkins); its chuiqiang and bozi plays include The Thousand-Li Colt, The Joined Seals, Phoenix Mountain and The Muddy River; its xipi plays include The Battle of Fancheng and Ceding Chengdu; its pihuang plays include Long Hu Dou (Dragon and Tiger Fight), Rebellion at Zhaoguan, The Cosmic Dagger and The Flower Field Error; and its huachang little plays include Li Da on Night Watch and Visiting Relatives and Quarrelling. Hui opera has a history of more than three hundred years and once played an important role in the development history of Chinese opera; it not only gave birth to Peking opera, but dozens of local operatic genres in the north and south of China are bound to it by an inseparable blood relationship.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Hui opera is mainly current within Anhui Province and around Wuyuan County in Jiangxi; within the province its troupes are most concentrated in Huizhou, Anqing and Chizhou, and it spread along the trade routes of the Huizhou merchants into Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jiangxi. The Hui troupes entered Beijing during the Qianlong reign, and not only gave birth to Peking opera — dozens of local operatic genres in the north and south of China are bound to them by an inseparable blood relationship.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Huiju Opera · Huiju Opera.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At the same time, Hui opera is an important component of Huizhou culture; in a direct and visible way it reflects many features of Huizhou culture and of traditional Chinese culture, and deserves deep study. But at present Hui opera faces the danger of being “cut off from the species”: actors are ageing, few are being trained, funds are tight and fewer and fewer people work in the genre. Rescue, excavation and collation of Hui opera must now be pressed forward, beginning with the protection of the old artists; otherwise a good opportunity will be missed and a great regret caused. Zhang Qixiang (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in 1944, native of Huangshan, Anhui. Zhang Qixiang’s performance is well modulated between tension and ease, his singing broad in momentum, with a round and bright resonance and a rich low register; his representative works include Flooding the Seven Armies, The Meeting at the Single Blade and Long Hu Dou (Dragon and Tiger Fight). Representative inheritor of Hui opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, a first-class actor, enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council. Li Longbin (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in 1956, native of Hefei, Anhui. Li Longbin studied in his early years under An Shuying, Jin Hongrong, Zhang Qixiang, Xu Qinna, Cao Shangli and others, and comparatively comprehensively mastered the performing techniques of Hui opera; from the 1990s he gradually became a leading figure of Hui opera. His performance accurately grasps the rough, unrestrained and sharply contrasting rustic vitality of Hui opera, and in his singing he both inherits the tradition and has features of his own; he is honoured as a “successor of the Hui troupes”. His representative works include The Meeting by the Riverside and Lü Bu and Diao Chan. Representative inheritor of Hui opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, deputy director of the Anhui Huijing Opera Theatre, a first-class actor, and winner of the eleventh China Drama Plum Blossom Award.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Zhang Qixiang 02-0518
• Li Longbin 02-0519
• Jiang Yumin 02-0520
• Jiang Xiangao 02-0521
• Gu Huamin 03-1015
• Wang Danhong 04-1632

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Huiju Opera (Anhui) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhang Qixiang · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Li Longbin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗