Si Opera

01 · Historical Records

Sizhou opera is one of the four great genres of Anhui Province; it was originally called lahun qiang and is current on both banks of the Huai River in Anhui, with a history of more than two hundred years. Only around 1920 did Sizhou opera acquire fixed troupes to perform it, and only then did it begin to enter the cities.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

It and Liuqin opera of Shandong and Huaihai opera of Jiangsu all developed out of “lahun qiang”, so that a certain blood relationship exists between them. Sizhou opera has more than eighty traditional grand plays and over sixty small plays and abbreviated plays; its representative works include Three Curled upon the Cold Bridge, The Eighth Sister Yang Rescuing Her Brother, Fan Lihua Mustering the Troops, Pi Xiuying's Four Complaints, The Great Garden, Chronicle of the Woven Shoes, Chronicle of the Velvet Flower, Running from the Kiln and Picking Cotton. The vocal style of Sizhou opera is highly improvisatory, for the actors may give free rein to the full range of their abilities according to the condition of their own voices; hence its name as the “yixin diao” (pleasing-the-mind tune). The male voice is rough and uninhibited, high-pitched and clear; the female voice is supple and lingering, and at its close it often leaps up an octave in a long drawn-out cadence, bright and fiery, moving the heart. Its principal accompanying instrument is the tu pipa, supplemented by the sanxian, sheng, erhu, gaohu, dizi and the like, together with the four percussion pieces ban drum, large gong, nao and small gong. The role types of Sizhou opera are divided mainly into dasheng, laosheng, er tou, xiao tou, chou and the like; its performance, built on speech and song, absorbs a large number of folk dance forms such as “yahuachang” (compressing the flowery field), “xiaochewu” (little cart dance), “hanchuanwu” (dry boat dance), “huadengwu” (flower lantern dance) and “paolv” (running the donkey); it is little constrained by operatic convention and is bright and lively, plain and frank, vigorous and fiery, full of the rich local flavour of northern Anhui. In performance there are many distinctive movements and step patterns, such as sitaijiao (four platforms), xuanfengshi (whirlwind), jianzigu (scissor gait), xianhezou (immortal crane walk), baimadaguan (a hundred horses in battle), chouliang huanzhu (pulling the beam and substituting the pillar), yanziboni (the swallow skimming the mud), huai zhong baoyue (holding the moon in the bosom) and fenghuang shuang zhan chi (the phoenix spreading both wings); the actors must attend to the coordination and interplay of the hands, eyes, waist, legs and steps.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

There are differing accounts of the formation of Sizhou opera. Many hold that it originated in the Haizhou area of northern Jiangsu, where it began as a small play improvised by local farmers to folk tunes such as the “liehu qiang” (hunter tune) and “taipingge” (peace song); it was later carried into Sizhou, where it absorbed the local folk singing art and became the “lahun qiang” Sizhou opera of Anhui. Sizhou opera is closely bound to the life and customs of the people of northern Anhui and shows strong regional cultural characteristics.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In recent years, however, with the rapid advance of society the audience has gradually dwindled, performances run at a loss, the traditional skills are on the verge of being lost, the survival of Sizhou opera has entered a crisis, and the urgent support of government and society is needed. Chen Ruomei (per the official dossier of an associated inheritor): Female, of the Han ethnic group, born in 1964, native of Suxi, Anhui. Chen Ruomei was admitted to the Opera School of Huaibei City in 1976, entered the Sizhou Opera Troupe of Suxi County in 1979, and in 1984 was transferred to the Sizhou Opera Troupe of the Su County region, where she has remained ever since. Her performance style stands on its own in the Sizhou opera world; she is skilled in qingyi, her stage appearance is handsome, her singing lyrical, and her florid high notes are especially attractive and distinctive. Her representative works include The Four Exchanges of Wives and The Osmanthus of the Eighth Month. She is a representative inheritor of Sizhou opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects, head of the Sizhou Opera Troupe of Suzhou city, Anhui Province, and a first-class actress. Tao Wanxia (per the official dossier of an associated inheritor): Female, of the Han ethnic group, born in July 1964, native of Suzhou city, Anhui Province. A national first-class actress. She was admitted to the Sizhou Opera Troupe of Suzhou in 1989. She specialises in huadan and caidan, also plays laodan, and takes on xiaosheng and laosheng in male roles; her range is broad and she covers all the role types. Her voice is rounded, combining strength with gentleness, and her performance is humorous, fiery and uninhibited. While preserving the keynote of Sizhou opera, she boldly takes in the essence of sister genres, so that the plays she performs are constantly renewed. She is a representative inheritor of Sizhou opera in the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects. She has appeared in many plays, among them The Four Exchanges of Wives, The Third Sister Yearning for Spring, The Clumsy Elder Sister, A Heart Bright as a Rainbow, The Second Sister-in-law Blocks the Cart, The Splendour of the Autumn Moon and The Mother's Charge, winning honours many times over. Among the young actors she has trained, many have won awards at national and provincial level.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Chen Ruomei 02-0588
• Li Baoqin 02-0589
• Lushibin 02-0590
• Li Hongxiang 05-2373
• Tao Wanxia 05-2374
• Zhou Bin 05-2375

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Si Opera (Suzhou, Anhui) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Chen Ruomei · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Tao Wanxia · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗