Luantan

01 · Historical Records

Luantan is a local operatic genre and vocal style that rose at the end of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, and by the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns it had already formed a style of its own.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

After the convergence of the Beijing and Huizhou styles, Luantan stood out and set up an independent school of its own. Weixian Luantan is a multi-style operatic genre, mainly current in the area of Weixian County, Hebei Province; its vocal styles include luantanqiang, kunqiang, Yangzhou luantan, gaoqiang, luoluo, suona erhuang and zaqiang xiaodiao. Weixian Luantan takes the "luantanqiang" of the ban-shi (metrical) system as its principal vocal style; it shows obvious traces of secular tunes, and in performance is close to sixianqiang, though fuller and more rugged than sixianqiang. When singing, the male and the female voice alike enunciate the words with the original diction of the characters (benzi), and use the falsetto for drawn-out phrases. Its principal ban patterns include Yigutou (First Drum Opening), Ergutou (Second Drum Opening), Manban (Slow Metre) and Liushuiban (Flowing Metre); the lyrics follow an upper-and-lower-sentence structure, generally in seven-syllable and ten-syllable lines, while kunqiang lyrics use lines of varying length. More than a hundred Luantan qupai (tune patterns) have come down to the present, among which the "mixed tune cards" generally carry both lyrics and gongche (percussion) formulas, while the "clear tune cards" fall into three parts: the large-suona tune patterns, the dizi tune patterns and the haidi tune patterns. The music of Weixian Luantan uses "pure intonation"; the vocal style and its accompaniment use a multi-voice musical form called "zhi sheng fu diao" (branch-melody heterophony), in which each voice part runs on its own under overall constraint, producing a distinctive and subtle contrast of melodies that is unique among the vocal styles of Chinese opera. Its gongche (percussion) formulas are also very rich: there are as many as nine kinds of opening gongche alone. Weixian Luantan preserves the southern-qu habit of marking the rhythm with tanban clappers, and is accompanied by wind instruments such as the suona; it has the character of folk wind-and-drum music, with dense notes, quick beat and a boisterous, lively air. The traditional wen chang (string section) instruments are two suonas, one seven-hole dizi and two small square shengs. The sheng roles are accompanied mainly by the suona and sheng, the dan roles by the dizi and sheng, the wen roles by the dizi and sheng, and the wu roles by the suona and sheng. Weixian Luantan has a regular role system, divided into the four great role types sheng, dan, jing and chou; its performance is simple, archaic, rugged and passionate, and lays stress on singing, acting, speaking and combat. Laosheng and huzi sheng head the sheng row, which has many plays of the leading-actor type. Martial plays stress bazi (combative weapon training), with complete sets of bazi numbering more than thirty. Weixian Luantan has a rich repertoire of about three hundred plays, among which Lintongguan (Lintong Pass) and Guangwushan (Mount Guangwu) are representative works.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Weixian Luantan is mainly current in the Weixian area of southern Hebei, on the plain south of the Hebei region. It is a multi-style operatic genre, whose vocal styles include luantanqiang, kunqiang, Yangzhou luantan, gaoqiang, luoluo, suona erhuang and zaqiang xiaodiao. Because it preserves the southern-qu habit of marking the rhythm with tanban clappers and makes extensive use of the suona, the seven-hole dizi and the small square sheng for accompaniment, on the temple-fair stages of the various counties of southern Hebei it has formed a wind-and-drum character clearly distinct from that of Hebei bangzi and sixian.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Meng Fanzhen (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in January 1942, native of Weixian County, Hebei Province. In 1957 he joined the Weixian Luantan troupe and became a disciple of the famous luantan artist Meng Xiandong, studying and staging in turn such plays as Lintongshan (Mount Lintong), Manjianghong (The River All Red with the Banner Flying), Yang Jinhua Duo Yin (Yang Jinhua Seals the Seal), Wang Huaiu (Wang Huai of the Wall), Baoliandeng (The Lotus Lantern) and Denghongzhao (The Red Lantern Shining), and playing such important roles as Yang Guang, Di Qing, Meng Liang, the Thunderclap Great Immortal and Yulu. He specialises in the hualian (painted-face) role type and his basic training is solid. His vocal style and performance are simple and rugged, high-pitched and stirring, with flowing drawn-out phrases handled with ease. His performance is fine-grained and carries a strong local colouring. He has preserved Weixian Luantan scripts, production photographs, musical scores and performance materials from the various periods of the Weixian Luantan troupe, and has painted more than thirty representative face designs of Weixian Luantan. Representative inheritor of the Luantan (Weixian Luantan) national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the third batch.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Xu Dinglong 02-0532
• Fu Linhua 02-0533
• Meng Fanzhen 03-1020
• Geng Shuyi 05-2350
• Jiang Guifeng 05-2351
• Lin Hongyang

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Luantan (Wei, Hebei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Meng Fanzhen · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗