1. The similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign operas are as follows:

1. The similarities include singers, musical accompaniment, background and stage costumes.

2. Differences

A. Language: Western classical operas are sung in Italian, while Chinese operas are sung in Chinese.

B. Musical language and style: Western classical opera usually consists of arias, recitatives, duets, choruses, overtures, intermezzos, dance scenes, etc. (sometimes spoken and recited). Chinese operas are all based on folk music and draw on the experience of Western operas in terms of musical form creation techniques. They are different from traditional dramas and Western operas.

2. Expand knowledge

1. Introduction to opera

Opera (Italian: opera, opere is the plural form) is a Western stage performing art, simple In other words, it is a drama that mainly or entirely uses singing and music to explain and express the plot (a drama that is sung rather than spoken). Opera only appeared in Florence, Italy in the 17th century, that is, around 1600. It originated from the theater music of ancient Greek dramas. Opera performances, like those of drama, rely on the typical elements of theater, such as backgrounds, costumes, and performances. Generally speaking, unlike other dramas, opera performances pay more attention to musical elements such as singing and the singer's traditional vocal skills. Singers and choruses are often accompanied by a team of instrumentalists. Some operas only require a small band, while others require a complete orchestra. Some operas are interspersed with dance performances. For example, many French operas have a ballet performance.

Opera is a comprehensive art that integrates music (vocal and instrumental music), drama (script and performance), literature (poetry), dance (folk dance and ballet), stage art, etc. , usually composed of arias, recitatives, duets, choruses, overtures, intermezzos, dance scenes, etc. (sometimes spoken and recited). As early as ancient Greek dramas, there were chorus accompaniments, and some recitations even appeared in the form of singing. In the Middle Ages, miracle plays based on religious stories and promoting religious views were also popular and continued. But modern Western opera, which can truly be called "musical drama", came into being with the secularization of music culture during the Renaissance in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

2. A brief introduction to China's new opera

The new opera music that emerged in modern China is called "new opera" to distinguish it from traditional opera. It is different from traditional drama and Western opera.

Three stages of the development of Chinese opera

A. Exploration stage: (1919--1944) new operas were either influenced by the "May 4th" new culture, or for adapt to the needs of the patriotic struggle against imperialism. The former, such as Li Jinhui's children's operas "The Sparrow and the Child", "The Grape Fairy", "The Little Painter", etc., have made useful contributions in advocating the spirit of science and democracy, and in popularizing and nationalizing the art form. contribute. The latter, such as Nie Er's "The Tempest on the Yangtze River", Xiang Yu's "Rural Song", Xian Xinghai's "Military and Civilian Mass Production", etc., all reflect the content of the masses' revolutionary struggle, draw on the experience of Western operas, and A valuable attempt has been made on the issue of nationalization of art forms.

B. The foundation stage: (1944-1955) started from the New Yangko Movement after the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art. That is, a large number of Yang operas, such as "Brothers and Sisters Opening up Wasteland" and "Couple Literacy" opened up the right path for the creation of new operas. Since then, "White-Haired Girl", "Liu Hulan" and "Red Leaf River" have achieved success again. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the experience of creating new operas was further explored. "Xiao Erhei's Marriage", "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang", "Song of the Prairie", etc. came out one after another.

C. In-depth exploration stage: (1956---) followed the policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred birds contend" and further boldly explored the creation experience of new operas. These new operas generally have three creative paths.

(1), closely follow the creative path of opera, such as: "Red Coral", "Red Cloud";

(2), basically adhere to the creative path of "White-Haired Girl" The creative path, such as: "Red Guards of Honghu Lake" and "Sister Jiang";

(3), the musical language and style are based on folk music, and the musical form creation techniques also draw lessons from Western operas The creative path of experience, such as: "Ayiguli" and so on.

After ten years of turmoil, the creation of new operas stopped. After 1976, there were new breakthroughs in new operas, such as "Sorrow", "Hearts of Grass", "The Hundred Bride", etc.

The pioneers of Chinese opera creation in the 20th century were Li Jinhui created 12 children's musicals such as "The Sparrow and the Child" and "The Little Painter", which had a huge impact on China at that time and set a precedent for Chinese opera creation. In 1934, Nie Erhe Tian. The Han Dynasty launched "Tempest on the Yangtze River", and this practice of "drama plus singing" later became a more common opera structure.

Since the mid-1930s, some professional composers in Shanghai and Chongqing have explored different ways of creating national operas, such as Xi Shi (Chen Gexin, 1935), Peach Blossom Spring (Chen Tianhe, 1939), Shanghai "Song of the Earth" (Zhang Hao, 1939), "Song of the Earth" (Qian Renkang, 1940), "Song of the Desert" (Wang Luobin, 1942) and other works, most of which draw on the creative experience of Western grand operas in an attempt to solve the problem of musical dramatization . Among these works, the one with higher achievements and greatest influence must be Huang Yuanluo's "Autumn Son". Two works, "Rural Song" (composed by Xiang Yu and others) and "Military and Civilian March" (composed by Xinghai), also appeared in Yan'an. Soon, the Yangge operas "Brother and Sister Opening up Wasteland" (composed by An Bo) and "Couple Literacy" (composed by Ma Ke), which were based on the Yan'an Yangko Movement, were novel and lively square dance dramas with singing and dancing, which changed the development direction of Chinese opera art. And it directly gave birth to the birth of the large-scale opera "The White-Haired Girl" (composed by Marco and others). "The White-Haired Girl" is a landmark work in the history of Chinese opera. It marks that Chinese opera has finally found its own unique development path and formed its own distinctive aesthetic character. After "The White-Haired Girl", there were excellent plays such as "Liu Hulan" (composed by Luo Zongxian and others) and "Red Leaf River" (composed by Liang Hanguang). Later, opera historians called the continuous appearance of excellent plays such as "Brother and Sister" to "The White-Haired Girl", "Liu Hulan" and "Red Leaf River" in a short period of time as the "first opera climax".

In the seventeen years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese opera creation has developed several different ways of creative thinking: one is to inherit the tradition of opera, with representative plays such as "Xiao Erhei" "Marriage" (composed by Ma Ke and others), "Hongxia" (composed by Zhang Rui), "Red Coral" (composed by Wang Xiren and Hu Shiping), "Dou E's Injustice" (composed by Chen Zi and others); one is based on folk songs and dance dramas, The minor-key opera or Li's children's musical are used as a frame of reference to create a new type of musical, and its representative is "Liu Sanjie"; one is to use drama with singing as its structural model, and its representative is "Starlight, Starlight" that appeared after the "Cultural Revolution" "(composed by Fu Gengchen and Hu Yi); a system of reference based on traditional Western grand operas. Representative works include "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang" (composed by Liang Hanguang), "Song of the Grassland" (composed by Luo Zongxian), "Wang Fuyun" "(composed by Zheng Lucheng), "Ayiguli" (composed by Shi Fu and Us Manjiang); the last one is based on the creative experience of "The White-Haired Girl" as a frame of reference, insisting on content needs as all art in terms of concepts and techniques. The starting point of the idea is neither restricted nor rejected by any one technique. As long as the content requires it, it can incorporate Western opera techniques, traditional Chinese accent techniques, or drama extra-singing techniques. This creative model has two opera masterpieces - "Red Guards of Honghu" (composed by Zhang Jing'an and Ouyang Qianshu) and "Sister Jiang" (composed by Yang Ming, Jiang Chunyang and Jin Sha), which are enough to prove its outstanding achievements.

In the new era, due to changes in the living environment of opera and the development of artistic concepts and opera taste, opera creation has shown an obvious trend of polarization:

One is the trend of elegance. , that is, continue to dig deeper in the direction of serious grand opera, and take the integrated beauty of opera to achieve integration and balance at a higher aesthetic level as the main artistic exploration goal. The early results of this exploration are "The Goddess of Flowers" (music by Huang Anlun), "Sadness of Passing" (music by Shi Guangnan), followed by "Wilderness" (music by Jin Xiang), "Looking Up to the Sky and Screaming" (music by Xiao Bai), "Ali" "Lang" (composed by Cui Sanming and others), "Return" (composed by Xu Zhanhai), and after the 1990s, there were "Marco Polo" (composed by Wang Shiguang), "An Zhonggen" (composed by Liu Zhenqiu), "Chu Polo" (composed by Liu Zhenqiu), "Overlord" (a song by Jin Xiang), "Sun Wu" (a new song by Cui), "Zhang Qian", "Cangyuan" (a song by Xu Zhanhai and others), "Eagle" (a song by Liu Xijin), "Ami Girl" (a song by Shi Fu) and other works . In terms of its high-level comprehensive analysis of ideological, artistic and comprehensive beauty of operas, "The Wilderness", "Cang Yuan" and "Zhang Qian" can be regarded as the peak of serious grand opera creation in the new era.

The other is the popularization trend, which is to use American Broadway musicals as a frame of reference to explore ways to develop our own popular musicals in China. The earliest achievements in this area were "Our Modern Young People" (music by Liu Zhenqiu), "Romantic Years" (music by Shang Yi) and "The Legend of Friendship and Love" (music by Tsui Hark) in the early 1980s. Since then, this type of exploration has continued throughout Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, no less than a hundred new plays were performed, but few were successful.