Qinghai Pingxian Opera is a newly born local opera after the founding of the People's Republic of China. It evolved from the folk songs introduced to Qinghai by prostitutes). The main characteristics of Pingxian Opera are its euphemistic singing style and localized recitation. It is mainly based on Xining Mandarin, but the rhymes of Sheng and Dan have absorbed the reading methods of Peking Opera and Qin Opera. Pingxian is a Han nationality sit-sing art popular in the Hehuang area centered on Xining. It is one of Qinghai's local music types. It was developed from the sit-sing art of Qupai couplet structure. It mainly accompanies the tuning of the three-stringed instrument. The format belongs to the "flat string" in the folk tuning method, so it is named after it. Pingxian's traditional repertoire is mostly composed of 7-character verses and 10-character rhymes, and is rich in content, mostly based on Han folklore and stories. Its singing style has a lively rhythm and beautiful melody.
As for the origin of Qinghai Pingxian folk art, one theory is that it was introduced from northern China during the Jiajing and Longqing years of the Ming Dynasty (1522-1572). According to old local artists, the earliest known Qinghai Pingxian artist is Liang Shouwa, nicknamed Liang Foye, who was born around 1850. Later, Li Hanqing and Chen Houzhai (both born around 1890) were very influential in teaching apprenticeship and singing. Based on this, it is estimated that this type of music had become popular as late as the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1874). Most of its repertoire is selected from classical novels and operas such as "Records of the Kingdoms of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", "The Legend of White Snake", "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", and "The Romance of the West Chamber". Judging from the flat string structure and its composition of words and music, we can see that its origin comes from various channels. The names of Pingxian tunes are mostly found in "Nishang Xupu" published in the 60th year of Qianlong's reign (1795) and "Baixue Yiyin" published in the 8th year of Daoguang's reign (1828). Most of the tunes and melodies are the same as the folk songs in Beijing and Tianjin, and some are similar to the folk songs in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
After liberation, with the care and strong support of the party and the government, traditional repertoire was collected and organized and a Pingxian folk art singing group was organized. Xining Opera In July 1959, the first Pingxian opera excerpts "Hundred Days of Marriage", "Autumn River" and "Cabinet Zhongyuan" rehearsed by the primary school students of Xining Opera's Pingxian Troupe were put on the stage with the finishing touches. Meeting with the broad audience in Xining City, it was warmly welcomed and praised by all walks of life and the masses. "Qinghai Daily" and "Xining Daily" successively published many articles and stills such as "Special Blooming Flowers" and "New Flowers Bloom, Qinghai Pingxian Takes the Stage", etc., enthusiastically praising Qinghai's local opera - Qinghai Pingxian. The official birth of string opera. On the National Day of the same year, Pingxian Opera was performed again. Since then, while studying reform, teaching and rehearsing, traditional plays such as "The Marriage", "Making the Road", "Kite Wrong", "Mother Recognition in the Nunnery", "A Dream in the Garden", etc.; modern dramas such as "The Little One" "Two Quarrels", "Little Red Hearts" (large), "Gleaning Wheat Ears", "The Carpenter Welcoming the Marriage", etc. Among them, "A Dream in the Garden" was produced as a stage art film by Qinghai Film Studio in 1960. In order to strengthen their internship training, trainees often perform in rural areas, factories, mines, and military units, and are generally warmly welcomed by the audience.
In the past two years, the teachers and students of the Pingxian class have been in the stage of exploration and discussion in terms of art: in terms of music singing, they basically maintained the form of Qupai set, but in terms of music singing, In terms of structure, it breaks the original method of singing and singing (i.e. front part - suite - back part), and gradually changes to the needs of plot development and character emotion to select suitable singing styles and music styles. Design and union. Research and innovation were conducted on the two musical singing styles with different emotions and tonal colors, namely "bitter sound" and "huayin", which originally existed in Pingxian opera, enriched and developed the "huayin" singing style of Pingxian opera, and enhanced In terms of recitation, due to the influence of the national language standardization at that time, I spoke Mandarin at first, but soon found that it was incompatible with the performance style, so I switched to "Xining Mandarin". The more prominent characters in traditional operas were given a slightly more accented accent; in terms of percussion instruments, they tried to use percussion instruments from Qin Opera and Peking Opera.
On March 1, 1961, on the basis of the original Xining Opera Pingxian Troupe, the "Qinghai Province Pingxian Experimental Theater" was officially established after adjusting and enriching the personnel, especially strengthening the creative research and choreography capabilities. The troupe's founding policies are: 1. Continuously develop and improve the local opera of Qinghai Province - Pingxian Opera. 2. Walking on two legs: rehearsing both modern and traditional plays. 3. While serving urban audiences, we will also target rural areas and serve the vast rural audiences in Qinghai.
Since the troupe has performed a considerable number of plays, and opera is an art form that expresses complex and sharp dramatic conflicts and depicts characters mainly through music and singing, the rehearsal of "Civet Cat Changing" began in 1962. "Prince", in terms of music singing, he boldly broke through the combined structure of music and music, and borrowed, created and developed the guide, allegro, loose board and other plate types, as well as string banquets, percussion, running strings, etc., while retaining the original flat strings. The essence of various tunes in Pingxian Opera has changed the tune structure of Pingxian Opera from a combination of tunes to a comprehensive one supplemented by board changes. In addition, it also absorbed some singing tunes and tunes from Meihu and Xianxiao in Qinghai, blended them and used them, and absorbed the folk suona music from Qinghai to enrich itself and expressiveness. Added high difficulty requirements.
After the start of the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966, the business activities of Pingxian Troupe basically came to a standstill. By the end of 1970, the troupe was disbanded and all the cast and crew were re-employed. In 1975, various local operas transplanted "revolutionary model operas" and held performances in Beijing. Qinghai Province temporarily organized the "Xining Amateur String Theater Group" and borrowed more than 50 business personnel from 25 units (including Yuan Ping) (Part of the Xian Opera Troupe), transplanted and rehearsed three excerpts of "The History of the Revolutionary Family", "Asking the Troubles in the Mountains", and "Love as Deep as the Sea". In July of the same year, he went to Beijing to participate in the performance, which was well received. Among them, "Inquiry into the Mountains" was selected to go to Beijing again to participate in the National Day garden activities in the capital at the end of September. After returning to Ning, the troupe performed many condolences performances in Xining, Huangzhong, Datong Huzhu and other places. In late October of the same year, the "Xining Amateur Pingxian Theater Troupe" announced its disbandment, which lasted for eight months. Due to the success of Pingxian Opera's performance in Beijing, at the request of the masses, the "Xining Pingxian Opera Troupe" was formally established in May 1976. Only a few professionals from the original provincial Pingxian Opera Troupe participated. Pingxian modern plays such as "March 3", "Mountain Veterinarian", "Suffering Together", etc. were successively rehearsed and performed in Xining, Huangzhong, Minhe, Ledu and other places. Soon, because the guiding ideology of the troupe was unclear and there were differences of opinion on the development of Pingxian Opera, it was finally changed to "Xining Local Art Troupe" in the summer of 1977, and later to "Xining Opera Troupe" ". "Xining Pingxian Theater Troupe" existed for one year. Up to this point, Qinghai Pingxian Opera has experienced ups and downs in its embryonic stage, which has caused Pingxian Opera to suffer great losses in terms of artistic development and talent cultivation.
After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in 1979, with the instructions of the Ministry of Culture and the support of leaders of departments at all levels in Qinghai Province, the original "Qinghai Province Pingxian Experimental Theater" was restored, which marked that With "Qinghai Pingxian Opera", the only emerging local opera in Qinghai Han area, it has been reborn. In October 1979, the Qinghai Provincial Department of Culture resumed the preparatory group of the "Provincial Pingxian Experimental Theater". Most of the original members returned to the troupe. In addition, more than 20 students were recruited to train with the troupe. After more than half a year of professional training and resumption of rehearsals, in August 1980, the large-scale traditional play "Fake Son-in-law Riding the Dragon" was staged in Xining, which was warmly welcomed by the literary and artistic circles and the general audience. Shaanxi Pingxian The Pingxian tunes and other related folk arts of Shaanxi Province also have a great influence on Qinghai Pingxian.
It can be seen from the book "Fengxiang Folk Songs-Pingxian Opera" compiled and printed by the Fengxiang County Cultural Center in Shaanxi Province in 1963 that although Fengxiang's Pingxian opera did not form a form of folk art, some of its tunes, lyrics and music were used Comparing Qupai with Qinghai Pingxian, you can find that some are different songs with the same name, while others are the same song with different names, such as "Jianjian Hua" (Qinghai Pingxian is called "Jian Indigo Flower"), "Baban" ( The music is the same as "Bapu'er" by Qinghai Pingxian), "Wu Gengniao", "Poppy Beauty" (the music is the same as Qinghai Pingxian's "Yang Dianhua", "Dakaimen", "Dakaimei"), etc. . There are also quite a few that are very similar to Qinghai's Han folk tunes. Judging from the history of population changes in history, according to the "Feng Family Genealogy" recorded in Xiachuankou, Minhe County, Qinghai Province: "During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, they moved from Fengxiang and Baoji counties in Shaanxi to Huang." From this point of view, it has continued since the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, with the migration of immigrants from all over the country and the entry of the army, as well as businessmen from Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places coming to Qinghai to do business and settle down, many folk songs, folk arts, and operas from other places were also brought to the Hehuang area of ??Qinghai Province. After settling down, it began to blend with local folk art and evolve and develop. For example, Qinghai Pingxian's "Dalianhua" and "Taiping Diao" are basically the same in melody and structure as the tunes of the same name in Shaanxi and Qinghai Meihuzhong. "Shilitun" and "Yayayeryue" are the same as Qinghai Meihuzhong "Dongdiao" and "Gangdiao" are the same, (Qinghai Meihu also comes from Shaanxi Meihu). Pingxian's "Yangdianhua", "Inverted Paddle", "Jasmine", "Darcissus" and other tunes are similar to some southern folk songs in melody, mode and name, and some even have completely different lyrics. Same. This may be related to the fact that all the residents of the legendary Nanjing Blooming Purple Lane were sent to Xining, Qinghai. In short, the music singing style of Qinghai Pingxian Folk Art includes southern tune and northern tune. It has the characteristics of Qinghai, as well as the flavor of Gansu and Shaanxi, and its composition is relatively complex. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, relevant departments attached great importance to Qinghai Pingxian. Since 1951, relevant departments have organized efforts to collect and organize its music tunes and published a monograph. In 1954, the Qinghai Provincial National Song and Dance Troupe used its tunes to rehearse short plays such as "Autumn River" and "The Tower Meeting". In the first half of 1958, the Qin Opera Troupe in Huangzhong County, Qinghai Province also tried to put Pingxian on the stage. Qin Opera actors rehearsed a large-scale traditional play "The Orphan of Zhao", which was staged in Huangzhong, Xining, and Lanzhou. In the second half of the same year, the Qinghai Provincial Government and the provincial cultural administrative leadership department made the decision to "put the Pingxian singing and singing art on the stage and develop it into a local drama" and established the "Pingxian Class" at the Xining Drama School. Since October, more than 40 students have been recruited, and nearly 20 Pingxian artists, opera physical training and rehearsal teachers, and new literary and artistic workers have been recruited to engage in experimental research on bringing the singing and Pingxian folk art to the stage.
Pingxian music and singing art have been developed and improved, becoming a local genre that is highly appreciated by both refined and popular people. It has added a new blooming flower to my country’s drama stage and ended the history of no local opera genre in Qinghai. .