Jinghe Opera

01 · Historical Records

Jinghe Opera of Lizhou is an opera vocal style and genre that is popular in the far northwest of Hunan and in Jingzhou and Shashi in Hubei. It is named for its circulation along the Jing reach of the Yangtze River. Historically it has borne such names as shanghe luzi, da banzì and da taixi; during the War of Resistance against Japan it was also called Chu Opera, Han Opera or Hunan Opera; in 1954 it was formally named Jinghe Opera. Jinghe Opera originated in the Yongle period of the early Ming. In the late Ming and early Qing, Qinqiang troupes came to Lizhou with Li Zicheng's army and the performers scattered in all directions. By the early Qing the 'combination of north and south' between the Chu tune and Qinqiang had basically been completed, forming the 'southern road' and 'northern road' of the Jinghe tanqiang, and Jinghe Opera had essentially taken shape.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The traditional repertoire of Jinghe Opera is relatively rich: more than five hundred plays have been preserved, including more than four hundred and fifty full-length plays and more than sixty detached single-scene plays. These plays derive mainly from Yuan and Ming zaju and chuanqi, from chapter-novels and from folk tales. Representative works include One Hundred Sons, Playing the Zither in the Chu Palace, The Great Return to Jingzhou, The Two Crown Consorts, Meeting on the Beach, Green Screen Mountain, Countering the Martial Examination, Qin Xuemei, The Third Mother Teaching Her Son, A Handful of Snow and Roaming Henan. The role types of Jinghe Opera are divided into six lines: sheng (male), xiaosheng (young male), dan (woman), laodan (older woman), hualian (painted face) and chou (clown). The male line is divided into four — laosheng (older male), zasheng (miscellaneous male), zhengsheng (main male) and hongsheng (red-faced male); the female line into five — zhengdan (main woman), guimen dan (boudoir woman), huadan (flirtatious woman), wudan (martial woman) and yaodan (teasing woman); and the painted-face line into three — dahualian (great painted face), maotou hualian (bare-headed painted face) and baba hualian (overbearing painted face). Jinghe Opera lays stress on the artistry of the 'inner eight' and the 'outer eight'. The 'inner eight' refers to a character's inner feelings such as joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, shock, doubt, infatuation and drunkenness; the 'outer eight' refers to eight external physical formulaic movements: yunshou (cloud hands), zhandang (stance), tikui (leg kick), fangyao (release of the waist), pianma (spinning flourish), jianbu (arrow step), baidang (swing of the crotch) and xipan (low stance). Jinghe Opera is strong in martial plays, and its most distinctive items are the 'aojunma' (the stubborn war-horse stance) and the 'doukezi' (shaking the shell), performed in a variety of postures. The music of Jinghe Opera, in which northern and southern elements mingle, has a character of its own. Among the northern-road vocal styles of Jinghe Opera, the taimai qiang preserves the taimai stage of the late transition by which Qinqiang evolved into the tanqiang; it is a special vocal style peculiar to Jinghe Opera. There is also another northern-road vocal style which is sung to the southern-road string tuning; it is called 'nan fan bei' and is also known as the 'zi mu diao' (mother-and-child tune). It is used to portray a character's deliberation, sorrow, fright and other emotions, while the zi diao portrays such emotions as mortal illness and death. These are also rather seldom found among the other pihuang genres. The southern-road and northern-road vocal styles of Jinghe Opera contain many special singing techniques, such as the eighteen-beat pattern, the thirteen-beat pattern, the regular eight lines and the dragon-swinging tail, and on the southern road the plain and reversed forms of the 'horse-head tune', the 'old-shopkeeper head' and the 'eight-screen'. The vocal styles of Jinghe Opera are resonant and grand in scale, and the performers' use of the voice varies according to the role type. The xusheng (bearded male) mainly uses the bian sang (edge voice) and the sha sang (sand voice); the xiaosheng and the dan roles use the falsetto; the hualian uses the 'ben daibian' (natural voice carrying an edge); and the small painted face and the laodan use the natural voice. Spoken delivery mainly uses the Lizhou official speech, and a few plays also use Beijing-style, Sichuan-style, Suzhou-style and Shanxi-style spoken delivery. The accompanying instruments of Jinghe Opera divide into a civil section and a martial section. The civil section includes the huqin, yueqin, sanxian, suona, dizi and so on; the martial section includes the hall drum, big gong, small gong, horse gong, first cymbal, second cymbal and so on. The traditional playing technique of the horse gong is extremely special: the gong is tossed up into the air and then struck. For a variety of reasons, of the five professional Jinghe Opera troupes in Hunan, four have already been dissolved or broken up one after another, leaving only the Li County Jinghe Opera Troupe still struggling to hold on.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Jinghe Opera circulates in the far northwest of Hunan and in Jingzhou and Shashi in Hubei. It is named for its circulation along the Jing reach of the Yangtze River. Historically it has borne such names as shanghe luzi, da banzì and da taixi; during the War of Resistance against Japan it was also called Chu Opera, Han Opera or Hunan Opera; in 1954 it was formally named Jinghe Opera. Within Hunan it is centred on Li County, while in Hubei the troupes are mainly those of the Jingzhou and Shashi area, and the two places influence each other in their choice of southern-road and northern-road vocal styles and in the range of martial-play styles.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Jinghe Opera.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Jinghe Opera of Lizhou has a long history, and to this day preserves a large quantity of precious original tune patterns, hall tunes and percussion notation, giving it a high academic research value in such fields as linguistics, folklore and the history of Chinese folk music. In this situation, rescuing and protecting Jinghe Opera can no longer wait. Zhang Youjun (recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in 1938, from Changde, Hunan. Zhang Youjun joined the Li County Jinghe Opera Troupe of Hunan Province in 1954 to study Jinghe Opera and took the famous xiaosheng actor Fang Juedong as his master. During this period he was also influenced by the noted small-chou actor Hu Zuiqu and played some small-chou roles as well. Zhang Youjun has been engaged in performance and directing in Jinghe Opera for more than fifty years, mastering a relatively comprehensive range of artistic abilities and techniques and passing them on to the younger generation of actors. His representative works include Slaying Lü Bu, Luo Cheng Writes a Letter, Three Attacks on Jingzhou and Heroes' Assembly. A representative inheritor of Jinghe Opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage, and a national third-class director. Xiao Yaoting (recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in 1935, from Linli, Hunan. After Xiao Yaoting entered the Linli Jinghe Opera Troupe in 1962, he became the closing disciple of the Jinghe Opera master Huang Jisan and received his true transmission. He afterwards worked mainly on the collation and study of Jinghe Opera music and produced related creative and research results, serving as chief editor of A Study of Jinghe Opera Music (in collaboration with Chen Jianwen) and compiling A Selection of Jinghe Opera Music; his script creations include Cheng Yaojin Courts a Marriage, The Return of the Jade Disc and Meng Liang's Family. A representative inheritor of Jinghe Opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Zhang Youjun 02-0526
• Xiao Yaoting 02-0527
• Liu Houyun 03-1019
• Tan Fuxiu 05-2342
• Wang Yuyou 05-2343

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Jinghe Opera (Li, Hunan) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhang Youjun · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Xiao Yaoting · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗