Liuqin Opera

01 · Historical Records

Liuqin opera is popularly known as lahun qiang, and also goes by the names lahu qiang and lahou qiang; in 1953 it was formally named Liuqin opera. It took shape after the mid-Qing period and is distributed mainly in the border area where the four provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and Henan meet.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study. The singing of Liuqin opera is centred on the zhi and gong modes; the zhi mode is gentle and lingering, the gong mode bright and vigorous. In Liuqin opera singing this device of changing mode on the same tonic is found everywhere, which is exceptionally distinctive in Chinese opera singing. The melodic forms of Liuqin opera’s singing include qiban, daoban, laqiang, sheqiang, ye li cang hua, huilong diao, sili changqiang, men’s and women’s lala qiang, die duanqiao, da yapai and “the young lady enters the garden” tune; its ban forms divide roughly into manban, erhangban, shuban, jinban and wuzi jinban. The liuyeqin, flute, zhuiqin, erhu, banhu, suona and sheng, together with the ban drum and the large gong, are the principal accompanying instruments of Liuqin opera. The role types of Liuqin opera have their own special names: among xiaotou, ertou, erjiaoliangzi, laotou, laoguai, dasheng, goujiao, maotuizi and jianbailian, xiaotou corresponds to guimen dan, ertou to qingyi, erjiaoliangzi to qingyi combined with huadan, laotou to laodan, laoguai to caidan, dasheng to laosheng, goujiao to chou, maotuizi to the painted-face role, and jianbailian to the white-faced clown. The performance of Liuqin opera is bold and unadorned, its rhythm lively and its rustic flavour strong; the actors’ gestures and footwork clearly bear the marks of folk song-and-dance.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

There are two accounts of the origin of Liuqin opera: one holds that it grew out of the folk ditties of southern Shandong under the influence of the local Liuzi opera, the other that it was spread from Haizhou in Jiangsu. In the course of its long development Liuqin opera absorbed the strengths of various sister arts and kept close ties with the life of the people in its area of circulation, becoming a vehicle of regional culture.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Wang Chuanling (per the official dossier of an associated inheritor): female, Han, born in September 1955, a native of Teng County, Shandong Province. A national first-class actor. Her singing draws on the strengths of many schools while forming a manner of its own; her voice is broad and resonant, her diction correct and her tones well rounded, and her performance expresses both voice and feeling. A representative inheritor of Liuqin opera in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. In more than thirty years on the stage she has repeatedly won provincial and even national awards. In 1995 the large-scale modern play Fengyu Qinghuai in which she starred won the Shandong Province “Five-One” Quality Project Award. In 2000 the Liuqin short play Jingxuan in which she starred took part in the national showcase of quality local operas and won the Ministry of Culture’s Qunxing (Stars) Award. To hand on Liuqin opera and train successors, she actively planned and organised the founding of a Liuqin opera school, which enrolled more than one hundred pupils in succession, and she herself took the lead in teaching the art.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Wang Chuanling 03-1054
• Zhu Shulong 03-1055
• Zhang Jinlan 03-1056
• Liu Lili
• Wang Xiaohong

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Liuqin Opera (Zaozhuang, Shandong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Wang Chuanling · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗