Huaiju Opera
01 · Historical Records
The performance of Huai opera is in direct line with the Jianghuai incense-fire opera evolved from nuo and shaman practice, and is of typical significance for studying the origin and development of Chinese local opera.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Huai opera, also called “Jianghuai opera” and “Huai opera”, is mainly distributed in northern Jiangsu. It divides into the northern school (western and eastern roads) and the southern school (Jiangsu-Shanghai), and the Huai'an city Huai opera troupe is the representative troupe of western-road Huai opera. Its basic singing tune “Huai diao” is accompanied by drum-and-gong padding, forming the systematic structure and norm of opening, developing, turning and closing, a great feature of western-road Huai opera and one distinguishing it from other genres. In its key arias, after the basic seven- and ten-character lines several four-character linked lines are used, matched by duoban advancing to kuaiban, expressing gradually rising emotion and then pushing to a climax, with a fairly strong emotional effect. Its commonly performed traditional plays include The White Tiger Hall, Shi Yilang and Wu Song.
The White Tiger Hall
One of the commonly performed traditional plays of Huai opera.
Shi Yilang
One of the commonly performed traditional plays of Huai opera.
Wu Song
One of the commonly performed traditional plays of Huai opera.
Wu Chengen
One of the Huai opera plays led by the inheritor, repeatedly winning outstanding performance awards at the Jiangsu Huai opera festival.
The Raid on the White Tiger Regiment
One of the modern Huai opera plays led by the inheritor.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Huai'an Huai opera belongs to western-road Huai opera, centring on Huai'an city, Jiangsu, and popular in Huai'an, Huaiyin, Siyang and Suqian; the Huai'an city Huai opera troupe is the representative troupe of western-road Huai opera, its basic tune “Huai diao” accompanied by drum-and-gong padding to form the systematic structure of opening, developing, turning and closing, a great feature distinguishing Huai opera from other genres.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Huaiju Opera · Huaiju Opera · Huaiju Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The language of Huai opera belongs to the northern speech family yet retains the entering-tone rhyme class no longer found in the northern family, of peculiar value for studying the distribution and evolution of the Chinese language. The inheritor, a national first-class actor of more than sixty years in the art who has learned from many quarters and is accomplished in both civil and martial parts, forms a singing style of solid resonance, clear enunciation, pure tone, ringing high notes, full middle notes and mellow low notes, and is one of the representative figures of western-road Huai opera, his leading roles in The White Tiger Hall, Wu Chengen, The Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, Beheading Han Xin, Wu Song and Pan Jinlian, Shi Yilang and The March into Exile repeatedly winning outstanding performance awards at the Jiangsu Huai opera and drama festivals. His disciples include Li Chundong and Zhou Genxi, and after retiring he continues to train inheritors for the transmission and development of Huai opera.
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)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。