Huangmei Opera

01 · Historical Records

Huangmei opera, also called “Huangmei diao”, was introduced at the end of the Qing into the neighbouring areas of Huaining county, Anhui, where it fused with local folk art and gradually developed into an operatic genre. In 1952 the first professional Huangmei opera performing body in the country, the Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Troupe, was founded in Hefei, Anhui. Drawing on the Anhui volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu, in the 1950s Huangmei opera was collated and adapted in such traditional plays as Tianxian Pei and Nü Fuma and filmed, developing from a local short-play form into a national genre and becoming a signature cultural image of Anhui.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Huangmei opera is a genre formed and developed step by step from mountain songs, yangge, tea songs, caicha lantern and huagu tunes, first in the countryside and later in the cities. It has absorbed elements of many genres—Han opera, Chu opera, gaoqiang, caicha opera and Peking opera—and gradually formed its own artistic features. It has made a qualitative leap in musical accompaniment and singing technique, its overall artistic level rising across the board and its influence steadily expanding, renowned overseas and now a famous cultural brand and signature cultural image of Anhui. The Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Theatre has a group of outstanding talents including Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang, Ma Lan and Huang Xinde, and has staged a large number of excellent plays such as Tianxian Pei, Nü Fuma, Niulang Zhinü, Da Zhucao, Hong Lou Meng, Feng Yu Li Ren Xing and Lei Yu.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Huangmei opera matured around Anqing in Anhui, forming a singing-and-recitation system based on the Anqing dialect, with performance traditions in Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi; the Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Theatre is a provincial professional body gathering such masters as Yan Fengying, Wang Shaofang, Ma Lan and Huang Xinde, and is the genre's most representative performing and transmitting institution.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Wu Yaling (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): female, Han, born in October 1961 in Hefei, Anhui. A national first-grade actor and an expert receiving a special government allowance from the State Council. Gentle in temperament, restrained in acting and plaintive and pleasing in singing, she has created such images as Zhen Gu in Long Nü, Yingning in Gu Nü Yingning and Fang Qikun in Wang Buwen, and has successfully played the Seventh Fairy in Tianxian Pei and Zhao Cuihua in You Chun. She has trained a group of outstanding young performers such as He Yun and Wei Beibei, travelled widely across the country and toured abroad with the troupe many times, much loved by audiences at home and abroad. She is a representative inheritor of Huangmei opera in the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects and won the nineteenth China Drama Plum Blossom Award in 2002 for starring in Qiangtou Mashang. Huangmei opera is noted for its plaintive singing and life-close subjects, its vocal style blending caicha tunes with the Anqing dialect and possessing high value for music and folklore research; the Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Theatre sustains the genre through reviving classic plays, staging new works and training young actors.

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 (Huangmeixijuyuan, Anhui) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Wu Yaling · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗