Yangju Opera

01 · Historical Records

In 1911 xianghuo opera (the incense-and-fire opera) of northern Jiangsu entered Shanghai from Yangzhou and was renamed 'Weiyang Daban'. In 1920 Yangzhou huagu opera entered Shanghai and was renamed 'Weiyang Wenxi'. In the early 1930s the two forms merged into Weiyang opera, later abbreviated to Yang opera.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

It took as its foundation huagu opera, the folk song-and-dance play of Yangzhou, and xianghuo opera, performed by male shamans at popular ritual gatherings in northern Jiangsu held to give thanks to the gods; absorbing Yangzhou qingqu and local folk tunes and small ditties, it took its final form. The music of Yang opera belongs to the tune-pattern system and consists mainly of three parts: huagu opera music, xianghuo opera music, and Yangzhou qingqu with xiao chang. Huagu opera music includes such tunes as the sowing-barley tune, the grinding-tofu tune, the shenqin tune and the diehuai tune, and its style is wholesome and simple, vivid and lively. Xianghuo opera music includes the shangziju line-tune, the shiziju line-tune, kuaiban rhythmic prose, the boat tune and the fishing tune; it is high-pitched and rugged, saturated with local colour. Yangzhou qingqu and Yangzhou xiao chang include Man Jiang Hong (Full River Red), Dieluo (the Stacked Fall), the Kuakua tune, Shuzhuang Tai (the Dressing Table) and Jian Jian Hua (Trimming the Flowers); their melodic lines are beautiful, refined and delicate, and pleasing to the ear. The accompaniment of Yang opera is divided into civil and military ensembles. The civil ensemble has the lead huqin, the zhenggong fiddle, the pipa, the sanxian, the yangqin, the flute and the suona; the military ensemble has percussion instruments such as the ban drum, large gong, small gong, nao cymbals and tang drum. The accompaniment of Yang opera is light, nimble and flowing, at once disciplined and flexible, with vivid colouring and a personality of its own — something rather uncommon among general opera genres. Although the role types of Yang opera are divided into sheng, dan, jing and chou, the division is not strict; performers have a broad range of roles, and in its vocal styles too it distinguishes only between the male voice and the female voice. The performance of each role type has largely been borrowed and absorbed from kunqu and Peking opera, but it always keeps the simple and lively character of huagu opera and is strongly imbued with the flavour of everyday life. Yang opera has always placed importance on the performance of the chou and dan role types; there are many traditional plays of one chou and one dan, and from these has grown the distinctive comic style of the genre. Yang opera has more than four hundred traditional plays, of which the more influential include Yu Qingting (The Jade Dragonfly), Zhenzhu Ta (The Pearl Pagoda), Shen Tudì (The Trial of the Land God), Xiu Fu Yuan (The Embroidered Tally), Wang Zhaojun (Lady Zhaojun of the Han), Nao Deng Ji (The Trouble with the Lanterns), Sanxi Baimudan (Three Romances with the White Peony), Ming Fu Yan (The Noble Lady's Feast), Qiaofu yu Hua Nü (The Woodcutter and the Painted Maiden), Hongyan Chuanshu (Wild Geese Carrying a Letter) and Bai Sui Guashuai (The Hundred-Year-Old Takes Command).

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yang opera was originally called Weiyang opera and is popularly known as Yangzhou opera. It circulates in the Yangzhou and Zhenjiang areas of Jiangsu Province, in parts of Anhui Province, and around Nanjing and Shanghai.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Yang opera has a high degree of entertainment value and aesthetic appeal, and its rich ideological content conveys the cultural concepts and aesthetic tastes of a particular region. It has cognitive and research value for history and culture, and is a precious treasure in the storehouse of Chinese drama culture. In more than the past ten years the impact of the plural culture of modern society has changed people's aesthetic ideas, the audience for Yang opera has diminished, troupes find survival difficult, and the genre as a whole is already in an endangered state, so rescue and protection measures are urgently needed. Li Kaimin (official inheritor file of the associated inheritor): Female, Han nationality, born in 1939, from Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Li Kaimin joined the Liucun Yang opera Troupe of Hanjiang County in 1953, and after 1960 worked at the Yangzhou Municipal Yang opera Troupe. In 1956 in Nanjing she became a disciple of Gao Xiuying; building on the vocal style of the Gao school, she gradually formed an artistic style in which her singing is rounded and sweet and integrates the firm with the gentle, and her performance is plain and dignified yet finely nuanced. Her representative works include Qin Xianglian, The Butterfly Loves the Flower, The Jade Hairpin, The Record of Grace and Vengeance, The White Snake, Yu Qingting (The Jade Dragonfly), Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law Tears and The Beggar Woman of a Prosperous Age. Representative inheritor of Yang opera, second-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item; first-class performer. Wang Qin (official inheritor file of the associated inheritor): Female, Han nationality, born in 1940, from Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Her representative works include Shen Tudì (The Trial of the Land God), The Bloody Grievance, Pi Jiulazi, Yu Qingting (The Jade Dragonfly), The Blind Man's Fortune-Telling, Dujuan Mountain, The Record of Grace and Vengeance and Wang Baochuan. Representative inheritor of Yang opera, second-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item; first-class performer.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Li Kaimin 02-0578
• Wang Qin 02-0579
• Jiang Jianfeng 03-1046
• Wu Huiming 03-1047
• Xiaoronggui 03-1048
• Yao Gonglin 03-1049
• Xu Xiufang 05-2366
• Li Zhengcheng

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yangju Opera (Yangzhou, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Li Kaimin · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Wang Qin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗