Maoxiang Opera

01 · Historical Records

Around 1895 a man from northern Jiangsu surnamed “Lao Manzhou” travelled north with his sons and daughters, singing as they went, and blended the vocal style of liuqin opera into “ben zhougu”, creating a new manner of singing in which the final note of a phrase leaps up an octave.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Maoxiang opera is a local opera form current in Weifang, Qingdao, Rizhao and other places. It began as small tunes hummed by ordinary folk, called “Zhougu diao”, said to be named after a nun of the Zhou family who sang them; it was also called “zhouzi gu”, reportedly because folk performers hung a small drum on the elbow and beat it to keep time as they sang. Because of the distinctive melodic turn on the three syllables “o he han” at the close of the upper and lower phrases, it is also called “o he han” or “lao guai diao”. The local people call this manner of singing “da mao” or “da ming”, taking these as homophones; “ben zhougu” gradually developed into “mao zhougu”, and after the founding of the People's Republic it was given the name Maoxiang opera. The melodies of Maoxiang opera are plain and unadorned, the singing gentle, plaintive and mournful, and the words easily understood, so it is dearly loved by the people of the Shandong peninsula. The female voice is especially highly developed in Maoxiang opera, producing a sense of tragic pathos that resonates most strongly with women; for this reason Maoxiang opera is popularly nicknamed “the opera that ties wives to the roof beam”. Maoxiang opera has more than a hundred plays. Among its representative works are Dong Jing (The Eastern Capital), Xi Jing (The Western Capital), Nan Jing (The Southern Capital), Bei Jing (The Northern Capital), Luoshan Ji (The Silk-Gauze Robe), Wubei Ji (Five Cups), Fengzheng Ji (The Kite), Yaoshi Ji (The Key), Huolong Ji (The Fire Dragon), Silan Ji (The Silk Orchid), Rongxian Ji (The Velvet Thread) and Mifeng Ji (The Bee), known collectively as the “four great capitals” and the “eight great tales”. In the ben zhougu period Maoxiang opera was accompanied only by percussion such as drum, cymbals and gong; in the mao zhougu period it began to use liuqin accompaniment. Later, under the influence of Peking opera, bangzi and other genres, it took the jinghu as its leading instrument, tuned to the erhuang of Peking opera and supported by erhu and yueqin, and progressively added such Chinese instruments as suona, dizi, sheng, dihu and yangqin. In role types Maoxiang opera at first distinguished only sheng, dan and chou; later it divided its characters according to the role types of Peking opera, and the division of labour became finer and more complete. Maoxiang opera has strong artistic appeal and vitality, and is inseparable from the life of the people. Yet as the market economy and modern technology have developed, the way people live and the way they watch art have changed greatly; young people in the cities have become fairly unfamiliar with Maoxiang opera, and professional performing troupes have steadily shrunk.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Maoxiang opera was already widely current in the Shandong peninsula by about the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty. In the course of its spread it absorbed the vocal styles and forms of local huagu yangge and the like, forming “ben zhougu”, meaning the original zhouguzi tune, which can also be understood as the zhouguzi tune current in the local area.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Although Maoxiang opera still has a solid popular base in the countryside today, the problems of development and transmission are equally grave. Zeng Jinfeng (official inheritor record of the associated inheritor): Female, of Han ethnicity, born in 1931, a native of Jiaozhou, Shandong. Zeng Jinfeng was born into a family of Maoxiang opera artists; her father Li Fengshan was a famous Maoxiang performer. She also reformed the male vocal style of Maoxiang opera and created new ban patterns for singing. Her representative works include the traditional Maoxiang plays of the “four great capitals” and the “eight great tales”, as well as modern plays such as Qu Xu Fu (Marrying a Son-in-law) and Yan Shuang Fei (Swallows Flying in Pairs). Representative inheritor of Maoxiang opera in the second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects, and a first-grade performer.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Cengjinfeng 02-0597
• Xia Meihua 05-2378
• Zhangmeixiang

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Maoxiang Opera (Jiaozhou, Shandong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Cengjinfeng · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗