Huaihai Opera is one of the main local operas in Jiangsu Province. It is popular in Lianyungang, Huai'an, Suqian, Xuzhou and Yancheng, and has a history of more than 200 years by 2019.ShuyangIt is the birthplace of Huaihai Opera.[1]The singing music of Huaihai Opera is rich and colorful, with the difference between male and female tunes.Huaihai Opera's aria is characterized by a sudden turn up of eight degrees at the end of the phrase, which has the artistic charm of soul pulling, so it is called "soul pulling tune".Some performances of Huaihai Opera are obviously born out of rural life in northern Jiangsu, with a strong local flavor.
Shuyang County was awarded the title of "Hometown of Huaihai Opera in China" in 2019.[18]
On June 14, 2008, Huaihai Opera was approved by the State Council of the People's Republic of China to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list, numbered IV-104.[2]
Huaihai Opera has a history of more than 200 years.It originated from the "Mentou Ci" of the folk tales of storytelling and singing along the gate. After the 10th year of Daoguang's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1830), the free association of artists developed into a small play played in the stalls.Most of the artists are "wearing their own clothes and shoes", which is called "the next stage" in the circle.At this time, there were few actors, and there was a saying that "nine people go to the kitchen while seven are busy and eight are not busy".There is no strict professional distinction between team actors. An actor must be proficient in birth, death, purity, and ugliness, which is called "kicking".Most of the performances are duets, and most of the content is to sing local rural life and some folk stories.
After the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1880), the scale of performances gradually expanded and the professions became increasingly complete, thus forming a seasonal performance club.With the inflow of Hui Opera and Beijing Opera, they have teamed up with Hui Opera and Beijing Opera, absorbed the repertoire, innovated the tune, and greatly enriched the artistic means of this opera form.After the 26th year of Guangxu's reign (1900), female artists appeared and new artistic development took place.
In 1940, the Communist Party of China established the anti Japanese democratic base in Huaihai District, organized the "Artist Salvation Association" and the experimental group, and produced modern plays such as "By the Chaimi River" and "Three Stars Falling".
In 1947, the artists spontaneously set up the "Popular Huaihai Opera Troupe". Since then, the small plays have been formally put on the stage and officially named "Huaihai Opera".After the liberation, professional Huaihai drama troupes in popular regions have been established one after another, and they have been constantly compiling and performing new plays following the development of the times. Huaihai drama has gradually developed into a local drama with distinctive features.[3]
The traditional repertoire of Huaihai Opera is considerable, boasting 32 large editions and 64 single productions. It is also collectively referred to as "two curses, two passes, three flowers, seven major operas, eight minor operas, and eleven stories".These plays can be roughly divided into five categories: folk life plays, family ethics plays, men and women love plays, and a class of official case plays. A number of new writers have also made bold attempts to reform Huaihai plays in terms of voice, performance, and other aspects, and have made certain achievements.Whether traditional or newly edited, Huaihai plays are generally close to life and the times, with rustic charm and bright, fresh and vivid aesthetic style.[3]
Aria
Huaihai Opera has a lively, cheerful, beautiful and beautiful singing voice, and a strong local flavor. In popular areas, there is a saying that "if you don't listen to Huaihai Opera for three days, you will not enjoy eating and sleeping".Huaihai Opera is mainly composed of Dien Ban Opera, which also sings some folk tunes.Men lack the same tune, while women's tune is based on good scenery
Week;The male accent is based on the oriental tune.In addition, there are Er Fanzi, Chuan Cross, Shuangqi, Caiqiang, and Eight Sentences in Fuqiang;There are also Golden Wind Tone, Dragon Gate Tone, Clown Tone, Boy Tone and various forms of playing and singing.The accompaniment instruments are mainly Bansanxian and Huaihai Gaohu.[3]
artistic characteristics
Huaihai Opera, a typical popular art, is mainly composed of folk dramas.Its singing, reading, doing and expressing are plain and easy to understand, humorous and interesting, and the form of singing and dancing is particularly warm and vivid.The combination of rural customs and wild interests in form and the content directly expressing the production and life of local people has distinctive local characteristics.In particular, some life dramas, such as the traditional "Rent Expedition", "Curse the Chicken", and the newly created "Small Bench", "Picking up Straws", have a strong flavor of life and the characteristics of people.As Huaihai is located in the middle zone between the northern Lu culture and the southern Wu culture, its overall style has both the rough and unconstrained northern operas and the gentle and graceful southern operas.[3]
Representative repertoire
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The representative dramas of Huaihai Opera include folk life dramas such as "Rent Reminding", "Curse the Chicken", "Standing on the Flower Wall", family ethics dramas such as "Four Notices of Pi Xiuying", "Flowers", "Big Library", "Filial Piety Lantern", love dramas for men and women such as "Three Chapters", "Small Curtain", "Small Jade Ring", "Visiting Friends", and dramas reflecting patriotism such as "Fan Lihua Punishes Soldiers", "Night Battle at Beiping Pass", etc,The official drama "Well Spring", etc., the new screenplay "Life and Death Resentment", "Children's Love", "Orchard Style", "Chen Yi's Three Meetings with Han Deqin", "There is a Sweet Well in the Town", "Generation of Township Head", "Straw Bag Village Head", "Temporary Dad", etc.[3]
Inheritance and protection
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Inheritance value
A large number of plays of Huaihai Opera directly originate from civilian life, and retain a lot of cultural information of local historical evolution and social development, which has a valuable auxiliary value for the study of social and cultural history of Huaihai region.
The libretto structure and vocal tune of Huaihai Opera are varied and unique, which has a certain empirical significance for studying the relationship between the libretto and tune of Chinese opera, as well as the emotional connotation in the vocal tune.Especially in some of its tunes, there are still five categories of entering tone rhymes, which is of special value to the study of the distribution and evolution of Chinese language.[3]
The performing arts of Huaihai Opera have extremely strong local flavor and rich folk color, and have unique artistic value, such as pig hanging waist, chicken digging pond, pheasant walking, donkey rolling, dog paying New Year's greetings, turtle crawling, tiptoe walking, knee walking, ghost pulling, wearing eight characters, short step pedaling and other artistic performance forms, which are extremely vivid and interesting.[4]
Inheriting Characters
Yang Xiuying, female, born in April 1941.The third batch of national levelIntangible cultural heritageRepresentative successor of Huaihai Opera, declared by Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, and representative project: Huaihai Opera.[5]
Huo Yijun, female.The fifth batch of representative inheritors of Huaihai Opera, a national intangible cultural heritage project, was declared by Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province. The representative project is Huaihai Opera.[6]
protective measures
On March 16, 2008, the Lianyungang Municipal Culture Bureau issued a policy: the municipal art school opened a youth class of "Huaihai Opera", and the first phase trained 30 inheritors of "national heritage" for free.[7]
On December 26, 2013, Huai'an held a seminar on the inheritance and development of Huaihai Opera. More than 80 Huaihai Opera artists and researchers from Lianyungang, Suqian, Yancheng and Huai'an discussed and exchanged views on the inheritance and development of Huaihai Opera.[8]
In November 2019, the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Project Protection Units was announced, and Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Troupe and Lianyungang Huaihai Opera Troupe Co., Ltd. won the qualification of "Huaihai Opera" project protection unit.[9]
On October 31, 2023, the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Project Protection Units was announced, and the Huaihai Opera Project protection units, Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Troupe and Lianyungang Huaihai Opera Troupe Co., Ltd., passed the evaluation。[17]
social influence
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Important performances
On November 11, 2007, Lianyungang Huaihai Opera Art Fans Association was officially established and held its first performance.[10]
On June 26, 2009, the Huaihai Opera "The Shoulder Pole Meeting", after several modifications and polishing, was performed in the auditorium of Xinpu District, Lianyungang City.[11]
On the evening of October 30, 2013, as an important part of the 2013 Huai'an Zhou Xinfang Drama Festival, the first Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Singing Competition, hosted by Jiangsu Dramatists Association, Huai'an Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film, Press and Publication, and Huaihai Opera Research Association, and hosted by Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Troupe, ended in the Huai'an Hefang Theater after two days of four wonderful competitions.[16]
On the evening of June 24, 2014, the large-scale modern Huaihai opera "Good People in the Countryside" was successfully staged in the theater of Suqian Culture and Art Center, and was accepted by the expert group of provincial stage art boutique project.[12]
On the evening of November 22, 2015, the second Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Singing Competition ended in Jiangsu Huaihai Opera Troupe after three days of five wonderful competitions.[13]
At 7:30 p.m. on December 20, 2017, Shuyang County Culture and Art Center in Suqian City sang the bright, fresh and vivid Huaihai Opera, the first performance of a large-scale Huaihai Opera "Fat Aunt as an Official" funded by the Jiangsu Provincial Arts Fund in 2016.[14]
On May 15, 2018, the first Huaihai opera film "Pi Xiuying's Four Notices" officially started shooting in the Jiangnan Film and Television Center Base in Yixing City.[15]
