Huaiju Opera
01 · Historical Records
Huai opera, also called “Jianghuai opera”, “Yancheng opera” and “Jiangbei small opera”, originated in the incense-fire opera of northern Jiangsu and spreads widely through Huaiyin, Yancheng and Yangzhou between the Huai and the Yangzi and through Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou on the Shanghai-Nanjing line as well as Chuzhou in Anhui and Changxing in Zhejiang. In the late Qing and early Republic the Jianghuai small opera pushed into Shanghai, passing through its early stages of mounted platforms, ground stalls and curtained booths, and gradually moved from teahouses and theatres onto the professional stage.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Shanghai's Huai opera troupes took in some Peking opera actors and formed the feature of “Peking mingled with Huai” in performance, making great progress. After the founding of New China the genre was uniformly named “Huai opera”. Huai opera's singing music originated in folk storytelling and work chants and is known for its ringing vigour and beautiful plainness; its main tunes include “Huai diao”, “La diao” and “Ziyou diao”, with a distinctive regional character. Through several generations of artists it has complete sheng, dan, jing and chou roles and full conventions of singing, recitation, acting and combat, and has accumulated a great body of traditional plays known as the “nine lian”, “thirteen ying” and “seventy-two ji”. Martial plays are a great feature of Huai opera, its martial technique deeply influenced by Hui opera, with such feats as the split, the handstand and the “black dragon stir” counted unsurpassed. Praised as “a lingering resonance of ancient nuo, a rare flower of the pear garden”, Huai opera “blooms in Shanghai with its roots in Jiangsu”, a flower of operatic art nurtured by both Jiangsu and Shanghai.
The White Snake
A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”.
Qin Xianglian
A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”.
Three Women Grab the Placard
A Huai opera classic and one of the founder's representative works, also often performed by several later inheritors.
Flooding Sizhou
A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”.
The Tooth-Mark Record
A Huai opera classic in which several inheritors have signature performances.
Ziyou Diao (The Free Tune)
A vocal style created in 1939, gentle in melody and free in articulation, becoming one of the three great vocal systems of Huai opera.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Shanghai Huai opera takes the maritime Huai opera troupes as its foundation and forms the feature of “Peking mingled with Huai”; because Shanghai was the centre of the Jianghuai small opera's development after entering the city, its vocal music created the new ziyou diao on the basis of the Huai diao and La diao and formed the fine and soft “Xiao-school dan singing”, sharing an origin with Jiangsu Huai opera yet with a Shanghai aspect of its own.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Huaiju Opera · Huaiju Opera · Huaiju Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huai opera is both an inseparable part of Jiangsu local culture and closely bound up with Shanghai-style culture, reflecting the deeply deposited traits of Jiangsu culture and the actively innovative Shanghai spirit, with research value in folklore, religion, history and culture. The inheritor, apprenticed at eleven to the folk artist Su Weilian in qingyi and huadan and later personally taught by such seniors as Xie Changyu, Li Yuhua and Dong Guiying, is the founder of Huai opera's “Xiao-school dan singing”, her singing fine, soft, bright and lovely, attending to character portrayal; in 1939 she created the ziyou diao, gentle in melody and free in articulation, which became one of the three great vocal systems of Huai opera. Her representative plays include The White Snake, Qin Xianglian, Setting Out on a New Road, Flooding Sizhou, Three Women Grab the Placard, The Morning of the Harbour, The Blue Bridge Meeting, Seeing Jingniang a Thousand Li, The Woman Judge, The Trial of Love and The Tooth-Mark Record, most of which became Huai opera classics.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiaowenyan 03-1102
- Ma Xiuying 03-1103
- Zhang Yunliang 03-1104
- Yixiaoping 03-1105
- Wu Xiaofeng 04-1673
- Cheng Shaoliang 04-1674
- He Shuanglin 04-1675
- Chen Delin 04-1676
- Shi Yuee 05-2431
- Liang Weiping 05-2432
- Rong Guanghui 05-2433
- Chen Cheng
- Wang Shulong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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