Chaozhou opera. It evolved from Southern Opera and was officially named Chaozhou Opera after the founding of New China. Chaozhou Opera is a local opera in Chaoshan, one of the three major local operas in Guangdong and one of the top ten operas in China, with a history of more than 500 years. Chaozhou Opera, also known as the wonderful work of China art gardens, is widely praised at home and abroad. Its outstanding features are: beautiful lyricism, strong Chaoshan flavor, a large number of excellent repertoires, unique performing arts, famous actors, appealing to both refined and popular tastes, and being deeply loved by the masses.
Southern Opera is the general name of Southern Opera, which includes not only the operas in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but also the legends from the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
Chaozhou Opera "Chaoqiang" and "Chaodiao" in Ming Dynasty are local operas formed by combining Chaozhou Opera music with folk customs under the joint action of opera and legend. Chaozhou Opera is not only born out of Nanxi Opera in artistic expression, but also absorbed and inherited by Nanxi Opera in humanistic implication, ideological content, aesthetic characteristics, changing trend and direction.
Many Chaozhou operas have been made into films and spread all over China and overseas. Chaozhou Opera Troupe has also performed many times at home and abroad. In particular, the performing arts of ugly dramas are well known.
The spirit of southern opera is to look at reality, promote good and suppress evil.
Southern Opera, from traditional opera to legend, has been popular in China for hundreds of years and spread to the north and south. The important reason is that most of his plays are based on people and things that were overwhelmed by the society at that time, showing the theme of paying attention to the sufferings of the people, punishing evil and promoting good, and the pursuit orientation is consistent with the wishes and voices of the people.
In the earliest dramas of Southern Opera, many poor scholars, such as "rich and easy to make friends" and "expensive and easy to marry", brewed human tragedies, truly reflected the social reality at that time, exposed the behavior and essence of the new powerful devil, and implicitly attacked the forces of the feudal ruling group. Because it met the requirements of the public, it had a great influence at that time.
From the perspective of human relations, many operas and legends in Southern Opera also show the sufferings brought to real life by courtiers and cruel officials, bullies and gentry, and the constant wars, reveal the real causes of various human tragedies at that time, mercilessly expose and condemn wars and social darkness, and at the same time praise the noble sentiments and traditional virtues of couples in distress by expressing the joys and sorrows of marriage and family, which is why they are favored by people and are enduring.
The dramas describing love in Southern Opera can live on the stage for generations, also because it resists and condemns the deep-rooted feudal ethics, feudal morality and feudal order in China society, and sympathizes and praises the behavior of young men and women who pursue freedom of love and marital autonomy but resist the turbulent times. As the spirit of Southern Opera, Chaozhou Opera has been gradually absorbed and passed down since it was first transplanted with traditional operas and legendary plays. Chaozhou opera has a wide variety of plays and rich contents. Almost all involve the romance between men and women, the rise and fall of the country, the joys and sorrows of the world, and the vicissitudes of history.
Although influenced by historical and social factors, some contents are mixed with good and bad, and the style is low, the mainstream is also characterized by reflecting the national traditions and social reality of each period, with the theme of "containing praise and derogatory, distinguishing good from evil, knowing the rise and fall", enlightening the world to keep pace with the times, abandoning evil and being good, so it is widely welcomed by the audience.
I believe this will still be a good inspiration, which will help to better implement the policy of "letting a hundred flowers blossom and bringing forth the new" and the spirit of "inspiring people with excellent works" in the future.
The Introduction, Spread and Development of Chaozhou Opera in Southern Fujian
In the Southern Song Dynasty, Minnan people asked about acting skills. According to Xiao Yun Hall, Zhu arrived in Zhangzhou in the first year (1 190). "From beginning to end, officials and people in Hejun County got what they wanted, and they looked like gods. Those who are vulgar and lewd than excellent operas are rushing to the screen. "
According to Chen Chun's "Uploading Cheng Si's Erotic Drama Book" in the third year of Qing Dynasty (1 197), the drama activities at that time had developed to "the group was not at least years old, so dozens of hooligans floated on the waves, which was called the head of the drama ... excellent people helped each other to shoot an erotic drama ... and built sheds on the land where residents gathered.
Wenzhou Zaju is an early southern opera that flowed into southern Fujian with the Song Dynasty's southward crossing and foreign minister Zong Zheng's move to Quanzhou. The orthographic drama sung in Minnan dialect has a long history in southern Fujian. Until 70 years ago, there were two orthographic drama clubs in Yunxiao County: Zhongzhu Laosansheng and Chen Dai Wan Li.
"Cantonese Opera and Quyi" said, "Orthographic Opera ... has been active and sowed in southern Fujian for many years, and it did not flow from southern Fujian to eastern Guangdong until the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty". Xiaoyaotian, who was hired as the editor of Chaozhou Embroidery Museum, also thought in the article "The Origin of Yin Chao Opera" that "orthographic opera is connected with Dongshan and Zhao' an counties"
During the long-term popularity of Wenzhou Zaju and Zhengzi Opera in southern Fujian, they were widely combined with folk local operas, resulting in two local dialects, Minnan Dialect and Quanchao Dialect, and local operas sung in other dialects, such as Xiao Yun's "Seven Corners Opera". The name of "Seven Corners Opera" is closely related to the seven roles in the early Southern Opera. In the 1940s, around War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, two seven-corner troupes appeared in Xiao Yun, namely, the "Science and Technology Class" in Dakeng and the "Shigu Class" in Mapu.
According to the book photos of Li Jing Ji brought back from Japan by Mei Lanfang and Ou Yangyuqian in 1956, the Yin Chao Opera, which was born under the influence of orthographic drama, shows that it was formed before the year of Jiajing Bingyin Ming Dynasty (1566). According to Wu Ying's Records of Chaozhou Prefecture in Qing Dynasty, Chaozhou Opera at that time was characterized by "soft songs, a mixture of Fujian and Guangxi" and "all learning southern dialects and learning local customs".
Therefore, Xiaoyaotian's Textual Research on the Origin of Yin Chao Opera holds that "the breeding environment of early Yin Chao operas must include southern Fujian, so Chaoshan culture and southern Fujian culture belong to the same category". It can be seen that Xiao Yun, Dongshan, Zhaoan and Heping below Zhangzhou, and Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong are the cradles of Chaozhou Opera.
The Records of Zhangpu County (when Xiao Yun and Dongshan belonged to Zhangpu County) compiled in the ninth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty has been recorded: "In the Mid-Autumn Festival, the workshops worshipped the land gods and reported the ancient autumn. All the ancestral halls in the city perform legends to entertain the gods. " In the 13th year of Qing Qianlong's reign, the Outline of Interpretation of Official Tones recorded the Minnan opera more clearly: "The official tone is sung in orthography, the spring tone is sung in white characters, and the tide tone is sung in tide tone ...".
At that time, there were more than 30 class clubs in Yunxiao County alone, and there were more than 10 in Zhao 'an. The famous ones are Jinxiu Spring in Xiao Yun, Yizheng Xing, Yongle Xiang in Zhao 'an, Tianxiang in Dongshan, Sanzhengfang in peace and a flower in Nanjing.
In the 1940s, Kuomintang politics became increasingly corrupt, Japanese invaders invaded, and Xiamen and Chaoshan successively fell. No sooner had War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression ended than civil war broke out again. Southern Fujian is in dire straits, people are in dire straits, and Chaozhou opera clubs have closed down. On the eve of liberation in 1949, there were less than 10 Chaozhou opera clubs in Zhangzhou.
After liberation, Chaozhou opera gained a new life. All counties in Zhangshu have set up preparatory committees for the reform of traditional Chinese opera. Based on the original Chaozhou Opera Troupe, county-level professional troupes such as Xiao Yun Chaozhou Opera Troupe, Zhaoan Chaozhou Opera Troupe, Dongshan Chaozhou Opera Troupe and Pinghe Chaozhou Opera Troupe have been established successively (Zhaoan Chaozhou Opera Troupe was renamed Haiyan Chaozhou Opera Troupe and upgraded to regional-level troupes), and the number of amateur Chaozhou Opera Troupe in urban and rural areas in the whole region has grown to nearly 200.
1966 to 1976 During the ten-year catastrophe of the "Cultural Revolution", Chaozhou opera troupes in various counties were abolished, amateur Chaozhou opera troupes were banned, and Minnan Chaozhou opera was on the verge of extinction. 1976 After the downfall of the Gang of Four, Minnan Chaozhou Opera was reborn. During the period of 1979, counties resumed the establishment of county Chaozhou Opera Troupe. Most amateur Chaozhou opera troupes have been restored. Minnan Chaozhou Opera has entered a new period of recovery and development.
The spiritual construction of southern Chaozhou opera is unique, which is rooted in the people.
Locality and folklore are the basic characteristics of Southern Opera. Locality first refers to language. Song and Yuan operas originated in Wenzhou and were sung in Wenzhou dialect, so they were called "Wenzhou Zaju". Later, it became popular in Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) and Zhejiang and Fujian areas, and adapted to the audience's requirements, singing in "Mandarin", but it was called "Mandarin", but Wenzhou dialect was still retained, which was "Wenzhou Opera Tune".
In the early Ming Dynasty, Southern Opera was popular all over the south. The troupe sang in "Putonghua" mixed with local dialects, and changed its voice everywhere, which gave birth to a new drama sung in local dialects.
In the process of its formation, the local operas of Nanxi also integrated the history, geography and fashion of various places, so that its content positioning, formal stereotypes and aesthetic framework not only retained the common characteristics of Nanxi, but also highlighted the individual style transformed into the corresponding regional audience, which constituted the local characteristics of the operas.
Folklore is also a major feature of Southern Opera. In the early days, Wenzhou produced Southern Opera, which was nourished and influenced by its folk customs, cultural psychology and popular art. The performance of Southern Opera has always been bonded with folk customs, and it has become a popular carrier of offering sacrifices to gods.
The schools derived from the post-Southern Opera parted ways, forming a state of confrontation between Kunshan Opera and Yiyang Opera. Kunshan dialect was divorced from the public because of its pursuit of elegance, which led to the decline of "high and few", while Yiyang dialect continued to "do as the Romans do" and took the road of popularization. As a result, it was welcomed by the masses and flourished because of its vulgarity.
The different positioning and functions of Kunshan Opera and Yiyang Opera show that folk custom is the root of local opera. In these cases, the same is true of Chaozhou opera. At first, the operas and legends of Southern Opera were circulated and performed in Chaozhou, which also used "Mandarin", but "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" infiltrated into the local dialect and gradually appeared "local accent". As for the appearance of "Chaoqiang" and "Chaodiao", it greatly promoted the localization of language and harmony, and finally formed Chaoju.
The content orientation and forms of expression of Chaozhou Opera are also integrated into the history, geography and humanities directly related to Chaozhou folk culture, as well as the life attitude, eclectic open spirit and aesthetic taste that attach importance to people's lives. It has been attacked by chaozhou people from generation to generation, forming a unique charm of being clear, lofty, soft and lyrical.
The folk characteristics of Chaozhou opera are also outstanding, and it has always served the rural people. In addition to a considerable number of repertoires transplanted and adapted from operas and legends, many self-made dramas are based on local folklore and stories, or the deeds of local people, and always keep in mind what the broad masses like to see and hear.
The performing societies and activities of Chaozhou Opera also have folk characteristics. Chaozhou Opera Square Opera has flourished in Chaozhou since the middle of Ming Dynasty, and it is still an important carrier of urban and rural square culture. The locality and folklore of Chaozhou Opera are also directly influenced by the spirit of Nanxi Opera, and its connotation and accumulated experience will continue to play an important role in the future survival and development of Chaozhou Opera.