Meihu

01 · Historical Records

Since the late Qing dynasty, with the expansion of its area of circulation, five branches of quzi opera appeared. By the 1940s, the Minzhong Theatre Troupe of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region boldly innovated, beginning to use traditional Meihu opera to portray modern life and creating such works as Twelve Sickles and Everybody Likes It; from then on Meihu was carried to every part of the country.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Meihu belongs to the tune-pattern system and is also called 'quzi xi', 'qingqu', 'mi huzi' or 'donglu quzi'; it is now generally known as 'Meihu'. It is the second largest local opera genre of Shaanxi Province, circulating mainly in Shaanxi Province, Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as well as in southern Shanxi, western Henan, northern Sichuan and the Shaanxi-Hubei border area, and is especially widespread in the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province. The vocal system and melodies of Meihu absorbed much of the folk tunes of the Guanzhong area from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it broadly passed through two stages of development, the family stage play and the theatre stage play. By the end of the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty it had entered a period of prosperity; in Fengxiang County alone as many as twenty-two Meihu troupes appeared. The sheng, dan, jing and chou role types of Meihu are all complete; its basis is chiefly the life, labour, love, marriage and funerals of the broad labouring masses, and its traditional repertoire is very rich. The second is the stage form: its repertoire includes full-length plays such as The Flame Steed (Huoyan Ju) and The Late-Blooming Rose (Chi Kai de Meigui), as well as excerpt plays such as Zhang Lian Sells Cloth and Madam Du (Du Shiniang). It mixes spoken dialogue, singing and acting, uses tune patterns freely, has a vocal style that is gentle and delicate, beautiful and moving, and is skilled at expressing depth, pathos and sorrow. The costumes of Meihu are plain, its make-up is bold and coarse-lined, its performance movements are true to life and lifelike, and its overall style is comparatively modern. It is rich in melody, and there is a saying that it has 'seventy-two great tunes and thirty-six minor tunes'. The great tunes are mainly for singing sorrowful plots; the minor tunes are mainly for singing joyful plots. Its accompanying instruments are led by the sanxian (three-stringed fiddle), supported by the banhu and the haidi, with the erhu, the daqin and both Chinese and Western string and wind instruments gradually added later. Its percussion instruments and gong-and-drum patterns all borrow from the local full-length operas with slight modification. It is skilled at portraying modern life; it is a very 'down-to-earth' local opera with strong artistic appeal.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The performance forms of Meihu are of two types. The first is the quasi-dramatic form that still retains open-air ('ditanzi') singing, mostly excerpt plays such as Meeting at the Ancient City (Gucheng Hui) and The Imperial Princess Takes the Veil (Huanggu Chujia), sung right through with very little spoken dialogue.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Meihu · Meihu · Meihu · Meihu.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Meihu took shape gradually over several hundred years; its repertoire is rich and wide-ranging, and it is of some significance for the study of ancient history and folk culture. Its language is plain and popular, vivid and natural, and it has considerable literary and cultural value. Li Ruifang (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): female, Han, born in November 1935, native of Tianshui City, Gansu Province. In 1952 she was admitted to the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Opera, specialising in guimen dan and qingyi roles and the like. Her performances in Twelve Sickles, Xinghua Village (Xinghua Cun) and Qujiang Singing Girl (Qujiang Genv) and others have remained popular over the years; in particular she became famed throughout the Three Qin region for her success in the modern Meihu play Liang Qiuyan, and among the common people it was said that 'after seeing Liang Qiuyan, one goes three days without eating'. She pursued artistic excellence and dared to explore; when performing the newly written wanwanqiang historical play Yang Guifei, on the basis of respecting the laws of traditional performance art she created the image of Yang Guifei with originality and received high praise. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Performing Artists presented by the Chinese Society of Xiqu Performance. After retirement she continued to rehearse plays for many performers in the five northwestern provinces and autonomous regions, and went to the grassroots to give free guidance to county-level troupes on rehearsal and performance. Representative inheritor of Meihu, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth batch. In the 1990s she was the first to adapt the Nordic spoken play 'Really, Really' into the wanwanqiang style and bring it onto the xiqu stage, going to Denmark to perform and winning an award.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Li Yingjie 03-1099
• Pan Guoliang 05-2428
• Li Ruifang 05-2429
• Jiao Ruixia
• Yan Huifang

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Meihu (Xiquyanjiuyuan, Shaanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Li Ruifang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗