Qiongju Opera
01 · Historical Records
Qiong opera is the only local grand opera of Hainan, called “tu xi” or “Hainan opera” in the Qing, “zhai” around Qiongshan and Haikou, and “Qiongzhou opera” or “Qiongyin” by overseas Chinese. It is only recorded under the name “Qiong opera” from 1936, after which the name spread generally and has been used ever since. In the Xianfeng reign of the Qing the banghuang vocal styles came to Hainan and Qiong opera, on the basis of absorbing foreign operatic art, gradually developed and renewed into a local genre mainly of the banqiang system with a few qupai, sung in the Hainanese language. In the Republican period Qiong opera staged “civilised plays”, reformed its singing and moved towards realism.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
At the same time plays written by Qiong opera artists appeared in large numbers. Around the twenty-third year of Guangxu (1897) military and brothel plays declined and merged into Qiong opera troupes, forming the civil-and-martial grand troupe system, in which Qiong opera divided into the two systems of civil-play and martial-play masters (laoguan). After the founding of New China Qiong opera entered a new period of reform and development, collating a great many traditional plays, arias, qupai and performing conventions, writing and staging a batch of new plays and creating a batch of distinctive new ban styles, its role system being simplified to the five great roles of sheng, dan, jing, chou and mo.
Zhang Wenxiu
One of the representative plays of Qiong opera, with which an inheritor made her name as Wang Sanjie.
On a Red Leaf
A representative play of Qiong opera, filmed in 1962 and deeply influential among Qiong overseas Chinese.
Searching the Academy
One of the traditional plays commonly staged by Qiong opera.
The Seventh-Rank Sesame Official
One of the plays commonly staged by Qiong opera, led by an inheritor and recorded for broadcast.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Qiong opera centres on the Qiongshan and Haikou area of Hainan and is popular throughout the island and on the Leizhou peninsula, spreading with Hainan emigrants into the Qiong overseas-Chinese communities of South-East Asia; in the Qing the performances around Haikou and Qiongshan were called “zhai”, overseas Chinese calling it “Qiongzhou opera” and “Qiongyin”, and the Hainan provincial Qiong opera theatre is its provincial professional body.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Qiongju Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Qiong opera is a local operatic culture developed and transmitted by the people of Hainan over generations, and historically exercised an important influence on Hainan's development, with important research value in anthropology, folklore, regional cultural studies and the history of international cultural exchange. The inheritors, national first-class and second-class actors, began training in the art at sixteen or have worked for more than forty years, studying under such teachers as Tan Qicai, Guo Yuanzhi, Wang Fengmei, Wang Guanghua and the Kun master Li Qianying; one made her name with Wang Sanjie in Zhang Wenxiu in 1956, was received by party and state leaders on her Beijing tour the next year and won unanimous praise at home and abroad for the film poem On a Red Leaf, being called Hainan's “film star” by overseas Chinese, having led in more than eighty plays and toured Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore many times. Long committed to training Qiong opera talents, they have trained such actors as Fu Chuanjie, who won the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Yingrong 03-1144
- Chen Yuming 03-1145
- Liang Jialiang 04-1691
- Chen Suzhen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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