Huangmei Opera

01 · Historical Records

Huangmei opera was formerly known as Huangmei diao, tea-picking opera and other names; its source lies in the tea-picking tunes that circulated around Huangmei County in Hubei. In the late Qing these tunes spread to the neighbouring Huaining County and other areas of Anhui, where they merged with local folk art and came to be sung and recited in the Anqing dialect, gradually developing into a new operatic genre known at the time as Huaiqiang or Huaidiao. Huangmei County, as the place where the tea-picking tunes were generated, is regarded together with Anqing as one of the two great roots of Huangmei opera, and the county Huangmei Opera Theatre has long undertaken the sorting out and performance of the repertory of the source line.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Huangmei opera, formerly known as Huangmei diao, tea-picking opera and other names, now circulates in Anqing, Anhui, Huangmei County, Hubei, and elsewhere. It subsequently drew on and absorbed the music, performance and repertory of Qingyang qiang and Hui tunes, and began to stage full-length "benxi" plays. Centred on Anqing, it developed over more than a century into the principal local operatic genre of Anhui and a major genre known throughout the country. The vocal music of Huangmei opera belongs to the banshi (metrical-pattern) variation system and comprises three great vocal families: huaqiang, caiqiang and the principal mode (zhudiao). The huaqiang is used mainly in short plays: its tunes are wholesome and plain, beautiful and cheerful, full of a strong flavour of everyday life and the colour of folk songs and ditties. The caiqiang tunes are bright and flowing and were once widely used in huaqiang short plays. The principal mode is the vocal style commonly used in the traditional full-length plays of Huangmei opera, divided into pingci, huogong, erhang and sanhang; of these, pingci is the most important vocal style of the full-length plays, its tune solemn and dignified, beautiful and open. Huangmei opera excels at lyricism, with a rich flavour: its vocal style is plain and fresh, fine and moving, bright and lyrical, and rich in expressive power; it is easy to understand and easy to popularise, and is deeply loved by audiences everywhere. In musical accompaniment, early Huangmei opera had three men playing the tang drum, cymbals, small gong, large gong and other percussion instruments while also joining in the choral refrains; this was known as "three beaten, seven sung". After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Huangmei opera formally established an accompaniment system with the gaohu as its principal instrument. Huangmei opera's system of role types developed on the basis of the "two-little plays" and "three-little plays", and includes the zhengdan, zhengsheng, xiaodan, xiaosheng, huadan, xiaochou, laodan, laosheng, hualian (painted face), daomadan (martial female) and wu'erhua (second martial painted face) lines. Although the roles are divided, there is no strict restriction, and actors often take roles outside their own line. The performance of Huangmei opera combines song and dance: plain and meticulous, true to life and lively, rich in the flavour of everyday life, noted for its emphasis on emotional experience, and possessing an artistic style that is fresh, natural, beautiful and fluent. Huangmei opera has many well-known fine plays, of which the most representative are Tianxian Pei (The Fairy Couple), Nü Fuma (The Female Bridegroom), Niulang Zhinü (The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl), Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Da Zhucao (Gathering Pigweed) and Fang Miansha (Spinning Cotton Yarn). Huangmei opera is one of China's five great operatic genres, and its influence is profound.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In the late Qing dynasty, the tea-picking tunes of the Huangmei County area of Hubei spread to the neighbouring Huaining County and other areas of Anhui, where they merged with local folk art and came to be sung and recited in the Anqing dialect, gradually developing into a new operatic genre known at the time as Huaiqiang or Huaidiao — the early form of Huangmei opera.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present the area in which Huangmei opera circulates is shrinking, and the survival of Huangmei opera troupes at all levels — especially county-level troupes — is becoming ever more difficult; the genre needs the concern and support of the government and of society as a whole. Zhou Hongnian (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1963, a native of Huangmei, Hubei. He has played different roles in more than forty traditional plays and modern dramas; his vocal style has a distinctive flavour, his diction is clear and fluent, and his voice is resonant and crisp, with considerable penetration and appeal. Representative works include Xing Xiuniang and Qin Xianglian. Representative inheritor of Huangmei opera, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the second batch; vice-president of the Huangmei County Huangmei Opera Theatre; a first-grade actor. Yang Jun (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Female, of Han ethnicity, born in November 1963, a native of Dangtu County, Anhui. A national first-grade actress and an expert enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council. She is adept at revealing a character's inner world and at portraying figures of differing character, with artistic qualities described as delicate, charming and crisp. Representative inheritor of Huangmei opera, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch. The representative Huangmei opera plays she has starred in — Meng Jiangnü, Shuang Xia Shan (The Two Descending the Mountain), Wei Liao Qing (Unfinished Love) and Mei Wa Yao Guo He (The Girl Wants to Cross the River) — have broadened the range of dan-role performance in Huangmei opera. She has won the performance gold medal of the second China Huangmei Opera Festival (1995), the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre at its thirteenth edition (1996), the Chinese Opera Modern Drama Contribution Award (2011), and the Wenhua Performance Award of the China Culture and Art Government Award (2013), among other honours. For many years she has devoted herself to the transmission and spread of operatic art; among the young actors she has trained, one has won the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre, and many have become mainstays of their own troupes.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Han Zaifen 02-0584
• Zhao Yuanyuan 02-0585
• Huang Xinde 02-0586
• Zhou Hongnian 02-0587
• Wu Yaling 04-1646
• Yang Jun 05-2371
• Zhang Hui
• Wang Qin

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Huangmei Opera (Huangmei, Hubei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhou Hongnian · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Yang Jun · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗