Nan Opera
01 · Historical Records
It formed in the Longqing-Jiaqing period of the Qing and matured in the Daoguang reign, with a history of more than two hundred years. Its vocal styles divide into southern road, northern road and upper road: the southern road belongs to the erhuang system and the northern road to the xipi system, both from Jinghe-school Han opera and introduced into the mountains of south-western Hubei about the Qianlong reign, while the upper road is tanxi and Sichuan bangzi, introduced into Shinan prefecture about the Jiaqing reign. These vocal styles blended and penetrated with the local language and customs of Enshi and with yangqin music and folk ditties, steadily evolving into a Nan opera of south-western Hubei style.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Nan opera is a pihuang-vocal genre and one of the four great genres of Hubei, formerly called “ren da xi” and “Shinan diao”, popular in the Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture. Its repertory is rich, said to number eight hundred, of which about six hundred survive in the sources and about three hundred are fairly popular, mainly drawn from historical romances, folk stories and myths. It divides into the four roles of sheng, dan, jing and chou, each accomplished in both civil and martial parts, its performance especially stressing doing, often singing a civil play in martial manner, and its character modelling and costuming are also highly regarded.
Wang Baochuan
One of the traditional plays commonly staged by Xianfeng Nan opera.
Qin Xianglian
One of the traditional plays commonly staged by Xianfeng Nan opera.
The Imperial River Bridge
One of the traditional plays commonly staged by Xianfeng Nan opera.
The Fourth Son Visits His Mother
One of the traditional plays commonly staged by Xianfeng Nan opera.
Madam Tusi of Tangya
A large modern Nan opera on a local historical subject, created to mark the successful World Heritage listing of the Tangya Tusi city site.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Nan opera centres on the Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hubei, Xianfeng county being one of its main areas of circulation, with the Xianfeng county Nan opera troupe as the local professional performing body bearing the tasks of its performance and transmission.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Nan Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It is both a product of the collision and combination of Ba and Chu cultures and a product of exchange and fusion between Tujia and Han culture, of extremely important reference value for studying Ba-Chu culture and the economic, cultural and social conditions of the Enshi minority area. The inheritor entered the Nan opera troupe in 1962 and studied sheng-role performance under his teachers Xie Baijie and Qin Youyuan, becoming a fairly influential sheng actor in the Xianfeng Nan opera world; he has performed nearly a hundred plays in more than five thousand shows, his representative works including the traditional Nan operas Wang Baochuan, Qin Xianglian, The Imperial River Bridge and The Fourth Son Visits His Mother and the modern Nan operas Zhang Ersao Acts as Matchmaker, Crossing the Bridge of Wind and Rain, The Daughters' Stockade, The Bloodstained Key and Joy in Old Age, and in recent years he took part in the backstage arrangement and direction of the large modern Nan opera Madam Tusi of Tangya to mark the successful World Heritage listing of the Tangya Tusi city site, his acted and directed plays repeatedly winning awards.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Daoyun 05-2456
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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