China's legendary works in Qing Dynasty. Author Hong Sheng. Describe the love story between Tang () and Yang Guifei (). Shortly after the death of Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty and Yang Guifei, Bai Juyi wrote a touching poem Song of Eternal Sorrow and a legendary novel Song of Eternal Sorrow. There are also more than a dozen works with this theme in Southern Opera and Yuan Zaju in Song and Yuan Dynasties, among which Wu Tongyu, a zaju by Bai Pu in Yuan Dynasty, is the most famous. It is on this basis that Hong Sheng created. The aesthetic value of the love tragedy in the Palace of Eternal Life lies not only in its revelation of the inevitable result of this tragedy, but also in its delicate description of the heavy price paid for obtaining true love. Hong Sheng's "Yang Yuhuan" is endowed with a new aesthetic temperament of the times, which resonates and sighs with the audience, produces great tragic power, and has achieved artistic achievements in the field of traditional Chinese opera. The Palace of Eternal Life is also a tragedy of the times. Li Longji has an unshirkable responsibility for the Anshi Rebellion, but the author uses the tragedy of love to reflect the tragedy of the times. The tragedy of the times has turned into the tragedy of love, which is exactly how Hong Sheng grasps the historical theme. The Palace of Eternal Life has always been praised for its beautiful lyrics. Composers in the Qing Dynasty have praised the Palace of Eternal Life as a "giant in music" for thousands of years.

The Palace of Eternal Life is the masterpiece of Hong Sheng's opera creation, and the theme of the play is the poem "On the seventh day of July, in the Palace of Eternal Life" in Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow. The script was written by Tang, who loved the imperial concubine and hung out with Yang all day long, regardless of state affairs. North Korea's power is in the hands of Yang Guifei's brother Yang. On July 7th, Yang Guifei and Tang were in the Palace of Eternal Life, pledging to be husband and wife from generation to generation. Soon, An Lushan and Yang fought for power and profit, and sent troops to rebel. Tang left Chang 'an with Yang Guifei, and the loyalist killed Yang and forced Tang to hang Yang Guifei. After the Anshi Rebellion subsided, Emperor Tang Ming missed Yang Guifei day and night. Later, Taoist Yang Tongyou used magic to build a fairy bridge, so that Ming Chengzu could fly to the Moon Palace to meet Yang Guifei, realizing their oath of "live and die together, and live and die like husband and wife" in the Hall of Eternal Life.

The Palace of Eternal Life is a love story between Tang and Yang Guifei with the Anshi Rebellion as the background. The ideological content of the Palace of Eternal Life is quite complicated. On the one hand, the author praises immortal love through the story of Emperor Yang Guifei of the Tang Dynasty; On the one hand, it was linked with the development of their love, which opened up a broad social background before and after the Anshi Rebellion. Because Li Yang is the supreme ruler, their debauchery and confusion in love will inevitably bring serious consequences to politics; The reversal of the political situation contributed to their love tragedy. The author criticized the political consequences of their love life, but praised their love life and sympathized with their love tragedy. This brings confusion to the theme of the work. On the other hand, Li Yang's love described by the author contains the author's love ideal and has certain democratic ideological factors. The class contradictions, internal contradictions of the ruling class and ethnic contradictions revealed by his love with Li Yang are more universal in feudal society. Therefore, although there are contradictions in the theme of the work that the author can't solve, the work still shows a progressive ideological tendency and is welcomed by many readers and audiences at that time. In Biography, the author said, "It's just love to spread new words through too many reasons." In the preface, he said: "It is meaningful to be extremely happy and sad, warning the afterlife." This shows that the complexity of the thought of the work is related to the author's creative intention.

The author enriches and develops the love theme of this legendary story, expands a broader scene and shapes a more vivid image. The first volume of the work begins with the "Fixed Love" by Yang Guifei, Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and describes their extravagant life and the development of love. Love tends to be sincere day by day, from the beauty of voice and emotion to the kindness and affection. The secret oath was the turning point, the change of Ma Wei, and the jade was buried. After the turn of life and death, love rose to a new height. The next volume focuses on describing their deep-rooted acacia, sending more sympathy and praise. Chasing ghosts, ringing bells, feeling regret, crying, dreaming in the rain, etc. , focusing on their persistent infatuation and sincerity in staying with the former alliance. Finally, I moved the ghosts and gods of heaven and earth, and let them go to the fairy record together and board the heavenly palace for a permanent reunion. In the author's works, Yang Guifei is a tragic figure worthy of sympathy. The author highlights her loyalty to love, deliberately avoids her relationship with King Shou and An Lushan, describes her life of competing for favor in the court, and successfully portrays a favored princess. As an emotional emperor, Emperor Tang Ming was criticized by the author. However, the author thinks that he is a rare lover among the relatives of the emperor and the country and deserves praise, so he blames Yang and others for his political failure. Especially in the second volume, the author beautifies their love for each other in the fantasy world. After Yang Guifei regained her immortal status, she still confided to Zhinv, saying, "You are among the immortals, and your dream can't leave the Tang Palace Que. It's hard to die after thousands of turns. " Ming Chengzu lamented all day that "I really don't want to live alone" ("Ring the Bell") and "I just want to leave the world as soon as possible, go to Quantai as soon as possible and get married with Lieutenant General Yi" ("See the Moon"). This is the true feeling of the author's eulogizing "It's about life and death". Obviously, it is not the real life of feudal emperors, but shows the author's love ideal. The intrigue between Yang's sisters and the court scenes all show the decadent life of the ruling class, such as erotic descriptions of sleeping in the spring, drunkenness and voyeurism bath, and even show the style of playing with women. Hong Sheng beautified them as an affair. This is the view of the feudal class. But the author's praise of love was progressive at that time. Since the Ming Dynasty, some operas have deliberately praised love beyond life and death in order to oppose the idea of propagating feudal ethics. The first volume, Li Yang's love is more and more single-minded, and the second volume, they will never die. Some predecessors regarded it as a lively peony pavilion, mainly in these places. The Palace of Eternal Life also focuses on the love tragedy between Li and Yang, and reflects the national contradictions and class contradictions in feudal society through the historical background before and after the An Shi Rebellion. In the first volume, the author describes the process of their love development, and describes the contradictions within the ruling class and the great changes that are brewing. The second volume, combining their life and death parting, expresses people's feelings of rise and fall, and at the same time praises a few people who adhere to national integrity, severely whips the national scum who flatter the enemy, and shows the writer's patriotic thought.

The author mercilessly exposed the feudal ruling clique and angrily criticized Yang for cheating the country. Yang "respects the right on the outside, and favors the imperial concubine on the inside", blatantly "selling officials and titles" and "taking bribes to seize power". He can take bribes, cover up crimes for An Lushan, and make a military criminal sentenced to death a senior official; As soon as An Lushan came to power, he was pushed out of the imperial court for power, and he changed drastically, proving that he was the "first person to give advice". The extravagance of the Yang family is described in the novels Wandering and Doubtful Chance. Starting from "extravagant heart" and "poor people's desire", the author reveals the disaster imposed on the people by the rulers. In "Into the Fruit", the post horse jumping litchi trampled on crops and killed people, all of which were positive accusations against the rulers. In stark contrast to the situation described in Youyou. Because the author lived in the early Qing Dynasty with sharp ethnic contradictions, he showed strong hatred for General An Lushan who invaded the Central Plains and courtiers who were enemies of ethics. An Lushan in the works is a very insidious, greedy, cunning and cruel figure. The author also used Lei Haiqing's mouth to lambaste the capitulators who betrayed the country and sought glory: "On weekdays, they talk about loyalty and filial piety, and when they are in danger, they turn their faces and make a fortune, and they are insatiable. As early as possible, I wagged my tail and accepted a new title, treating an enemy as a benefactor. I only ask you, are you ashamed of being masked? " While portraying traitors and traitors, the author has successfully created a series of glorious images of patriots. Guo Ziyi is an ideal figure in the author's mind. When he became an official at the end of his career, he worried day and night that "Yang stole authority and An Lushan abused it as soon as possible. Look at the outline, it's not like it. " He sympathized with the people's sufferings. In doubt, he saw the extravagance of the Yang family and sighed deeply: "I knew he was always covered with blood!" " After he mastered the military power, he actively prepared to resist the Anshi rebellion. With the war, he took it as his duty to "sweep away bandits, recover the two capitals, rebuild the Tang family and see the power of Han officials again", and finally established brilliant achievements. Lei Haiqing is an ordinary musician, but he is indomitable and upright in the face of the enemy, which is in sharp contrast with all the fake officials who turn thieves. The author deeply sympathizes with the people in exile after the An Shi Rebellion. At the same time, Guo Congjin offered a meal and Li Guinian wrote lyrics, showing his sense of rise and fall. The song "Zhuan Diao Lang Er" in Tanci is the author's confession;

The ups and downs that can't be sung and the sighs that can't be played are desolate and eyeful in Dagu. I just need to pluck the strings to dispel the bitterness, turn over my worries and slowly play the legacy of Tianbao.

The profound patriotic thoughts expressed in his works had great practical significance and social influence at that time. The author's exposure of feudal society only starts with warning rulers not to be greedy for luxury. He believes that the cause of disaster and failure is luxury, and confession can calm it down. Therefore, he chose an example of "rejuvenating the country" (Preface to the Palace of Eternal Life by Wu Shuxuan) to convince the feudal rulers. From this perspective, it is impossible for him to criticize Tang and Yang Guifei more deeply. When expanding contradictions, we are also exposed to certain social realities, and when solving contradictions, we rely entirely on our own subjective imagination to beautify them. In Tanci and Private Sacrifice, he tried his best to excuse Tang and Yang Guifei, and even opposed Yang Guifei and Ma Su's military mutiny to praise them. Authors can easily write off their sins, but they can't give readers a convincing explanation, which leads to contradictions and confusion in the theme of their works. It also fully exposed the author's class limitations. In terms of artistic expression, The Palace of Eternal Life inherits such techniques as Wu Tongyu and Huansha Ji, which reflect the rise and fall of a generation through love stories. In particular, the first volume exposes the fatuity and political darkness of feudal rulers with a more critical attitude, and basically adopts realistic creative methods. The second volume, in the handling of love tragedy, praises the love that sincerely touched the world through some fantastic forms, and also draws lessons from the romantic technique of Peony Pavilion, but it is illusory and redundant due to the lack of realistic foundation.

The author projects his ideal on the characters he portrays, showing strong emotional color and distinct tendency. , Lei Haiqing, Guo Congjin, Li Ling and other figures all expressed the author's own thoughts and likes and dislikes to varying degrees. The author is also good at depicting characters from the perspective of development. He described in detail the tortuous development process of Yang Guifei's love in the Tang Dynasty, thus showing their loyalty to love. But because the author sometimes leaves the social environment and class characteristics of the characters to describe. It doesn't seem real enough

Strong lyrical color is another feature of the Palace of Eternal Life. For example, in "Ring the Bell", the memory of Yang Guifei in the Tang Dynasty is expressed by the combination of bells and the sound of rain:

It has been falling, this is a sad heart. Listening to the mountains and trees in the distance, fighting the wind and rain, loud and low. Bit by bit, one after another, one after another, bursting with the blood and tears of sad people. For this kind of injury, I turned to memories. Poplar bleak rain vertical and horizontal, at this time the lonely soul is cold, the ghost fire is cold, and the grass is wet with fireflies. I only regret losing my money, I lost my money! I am alone in the world, and I really don't want to be born. Have a graceful demeanour, meet with ghosts sooner or later. A lonely mountain, the bell is ringing, and the pavilion is given by the roadside, just like my ileum! -"Wuling Flower"

"The Palace of Eternal Life" has magnificent scenes and tortuous plots, and the atmosphere surrounding the whole drama also changes with the development of the plot. The first volume, on the one hand, reflects the development of love through the process of "promise" to "secret love", on the other hand, reflects the increasingly sharp social contradictions through "bribery" to "imprisonment". Between the games, they contrast with each other and develop alternately. In the second volume, the author describes the stormy situation and the sadness of where you will go, forming a strong tragic atmosphere.

The lyrics of "The Palace of Eternal Life" are beautiful, smooth and full of poetry. For example, when Tanci came out, nine pieces of northern music were used, namely "Tune the Commodity Lange", from "Golden Hairpin Box" to The Journey to the West, with deep and moving music. For example:

If you don't stab the horse house, the Buddhist temple will be abandoned. One generation of beauty is the best for you, and a thousand generations will hate Luo towel blood. Half a tree is an unlucky monument, and a handful of soil is a heartbroken grave. No one has ever been desolate, and whoever hangs pears in the end of the world will thank you! Pity the lonely soul, and only lament jathyapple with the weeping emperor. -

Some books in the play, such as Surprise, Strange Thief and Ring the Bell, can better combine the needs of the plot, use different styles, brew the environmental atmosphere and highlight the character characteristics. But some places are still too elegant and gorgeous, not vivid enough and not provocative enough.

Hong Sheng's profound understanding of melody was revised by Xu Lin, who specialized in melody at that time, so the achievements of the Palace of Eternal Life in melody have always been praised by composers. The first and second folds of Gongdiao in the whole drama are never repeated, and the use of various tunes in Beiqu and Nanqu has detailed arrangements. Even if it is a 10% discount play, we also pay great attention to the arrangement of qupai. Every word is very careful in choosing words, making sentences and using rhymes. So it was staged in the north and south, and it was very popular. Wu Shuxuan said in the preface: "Those who love literature like their words, and those who know their friends appreciate their laws, so rumors will benefit them." Those who save music, write pens and actors can do it, and the price will increase. "This shows its stage effect.

There are also some boring gags in the Palace of Eternal Life. For example, the descriptions of citizens in Wandering and Post Office are somewhat unsightly, and even in Entering Fruit, vulgar sophistry is used to persecute people, which reflects the author's ideological and artistic defects. Structurally, the second volume is not as compact as the first volume. In order to achieve the symmetry between the two volumes, it is deliberately extravagant and wasteful, and some are procrastinating, such as Fairy Tale Memories and Post Preparation.