The Origin and Formation of China Traditional Opera

The Origin and Formation of China Traditional Opera

The origin and formation of the protagonist's opera The origin of China's opera is very early, and it has sprouted in the song and dance of ancient primitive society. Let me introduce the origin and formation of China traditional drama to you. Let's go and have a look!

The origin and formation of China traditional opera has a long development and growth process. After the Han and Tang Dynasties, it was not until the Song and Jin Dynasties that a relatively complete art form of traditional Chinese opera was formed. Traditional operas in China are mainly composed of three different artistic forms: folk songs and dances, rap and burlesque. Temple Fair and Washe Goulan promoted the formation of traditional operas in China.

The folk song and dance "Shang Shu Shun Dian" says: "Give a stone a slap and all animals dance." This is a primitive religious ceremony of a group of people in primitive society before or after hunting: people dress up as animals and dance to pray or reward God. Dancing is accompanied by cheering and singing. "Lu Chunqiu Ancient Music" said: "Ge Zhile, three people fuck oxtails, and their feet are full of songs." What is sung here is to pray for good weather and good harvests. In primitive society, when people celebrate festivals, they often worship the gods with songs and dances, and at the same time entertain themselves. At that time, there were festivals to commemorate the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, celebrate the harvest, drive away ghosts and diseases, worship ancestors, and courtship between men and women.

From primitive society to class society, China has a characteristic different from the west: with the appearance of western classes, the original clan blood organization gradually disintegrated; China, on the other hand, has kept the residual form of this organization for a long time and formed a relatively fixed rural organization. At the same time, the songs and dances left over from primitive society are often preserved in rural areas throughout the ages. It is said in The Analects of Confucius and the Rural Party that Confucius respectfully puts on his royal clothes every year to participate in the Rural Pledge. This "hometown" refers to the hometown where Confucius was born, that is, the seat of his clan. This "Nuo" is an exorcism and epidemic elimination ceremony held on the 30th of every year. During the Warring States Period, Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs" was the lyrics of the folk song and dance offering sacrifices to the gods in Chu. The folk songs and dances in Guanzhong area of Han Dynasty can be found in the recorded East China Sea Huanggong. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty, there were slope heads, bedding faces and picking mothers in the north, and lion dances and songs and dances in Gong Hu and Kunlun in the south. These songs and dances were improved in the Tang Dynasty. There was Song in the Northern Song Dynasty, and there were dry boats, bamboo horses and flower drums in the Southern Song Dynasty. The characteristics of this kind of song and dance are as follows: ① farmers only perform at festivals; 2 is an amateur; (3) Performing in a square or a parade; 4 years of singing and dancing, dressed as characters to perform, but has not yet formed a complete drama story; ⑤ Apart from singing and dancing, it also includes performances of various skills, such as walking on stilts, martial arts and somersaults. Since the Song Dynasty, this kind of song and dance has been called "social fire".

From primitive society to the Northern Song Dynasty12nd century, rural song and dance has made great progress in art, but it has never formed a more complete drama form. The reason is complicated. On the one hand, the level of rural economy is low, and farmers' art is always in an amateur state. Without professionalism, they can't always be engaged in artistic creation. On the other hand, the development of rural economy and the improvement of people's life are very slow, and there is no urgent need to show new things in art. However, when the Song Dynasty moved south, the commodity economy in the south developed rapidly, commercial cities and ports appeared in the southeast coast, and the life in the nearby countryside also changed greatly, and professional art groups appeared. As a result, the early form of China traditional opera-Southern Opera came into being.

The influence of rap art on China traditional opera has two aspects: one is the influence of rap literature on script creation; The first is the influence of rap music on the singing of traditional Chinese opera.

There is no epic of Han nationality in China, and the earliest poem about tribal history can be found in The Book of Songs, which is Ode to Ancestors. The only narrative poems that really belong to literary works are Mulan Ci in the North and Peacock Flying Southeast in the South during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but there is no evidence that they are sung with orchestral strings. Only some "harmony songs" in Yuefu poems in the Han Dynasty, such as "White-headed Song" (like a story with Wen Jun) and "Mulberry on the Stranger" (a story of a woman in Luo Fu), are in line with the story of orchestral harmony. This part of Yuefu poetry was called Daqu in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Because these lyrics are sung with Daqu music. Daqu is a form of music, which tells a complete story by singing a tune many times. Daqu is preceded by an introduction called "Yan" and followed by an ending called "Qu" and "Luan" (some Daqu don't sing stories, which is not included). At the end of the song, the lyrics are written, and there is a dance accompanied by music. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Daqu made great progress in music and dance, forming a musical structure form of Songban-Adagio-Allegro-Songban, which was repeated many times, up to 40 times. In the Song Dynasty, because the scattered board in the above form was too long to describe the story with music, I chose Adagio and Allegro to tell a story several times to the end. This form, called "collecting all times", became the main form of narrative story programs in Song Zaju. For example, Wang Zi Liu Gaoyao tells the story of Gao by extracting all the songs of Liu Yao's Daqu.

In the Tang Dynasty, monasteries told Buddhist stories and secular stories while singing, which was called "popular speaking" or "change", and this kind of libretto was called "change". The style of bianwen is prose, with seven or five words and poems. This style was later inherited by the drum lyrics in the Song Dynasty, and was used to sing stories, such as "Drum lyrics of Liangzhu", which tells the story of Cui Yingying and Zhang Sheng. We recited Yuan Zhen's Biography of Yingying first, and then sang butterfly lovers. This essay was sung word for word until the end of the story. The music of drum lyrics is a constant repetition and monotony of a tune. In the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, the rapper Kong Sanchuan created a Zhu Gong tune to rap long stories. The forms of Zhugong tunes are not limited to using one tune in music, nor to using the same tune, but to choose the appropriate Gongdiao according to the needs of the story. Say such a story, and then sing a song to express the feelings of this story, its expressive ability will be greatly enhanced.

China's rap art reached the Jin Dynasty in the13rd century, and Dong Jieyuan's "The West Chamber" rap appeared. The appearance of "Dong Xixiang" indicates that the art of rap is fully mature both in literature and music. The maturity of rap art paved the way for the appearance of China traditional opera in literature and music. According to Zhong Sicheng's Ghost Record Book in Yuan Dynasty, Dong Jieyuan was the founder of North Opera. In the aspect of singing music, Gongdiao in Jin Dynasty was the predecessor of Beiqu in Yuan Dynasty. Wang Shifu's Romance of the West Chamber in Yuan Dynasty's Zaju is a further dramatization of Dong Xixiang in literature. Musically, the four-fold and one-wedge combination of Qupai is also a great progress in the dramatization of Zhu Gong's tune music.

Burlesque develops from "excellence". You showed up early. According to historical records, it first appeared in the court of West Zhou Youwang in 774 BC. Especially the jester of kings and nobles, he is good at irony and teasing. The king behaved inappropriately and could not criticize directly, so he teased him with Excellence to achieve the purpose of irony. There was an unwritten rule that saying the wrong thing was not a crime. This is the same as the law of the times when The Book of Songs came into being. It is not a crime for people to satirize a person or a thing with poetry. As the saying goes, "the speaker is innocent, and the listener is enough to quit". But you don't just make jokes to make a smile. He also imitates other people's language and actions. For example, the dream in Chu Zhuangwang period can be disguised as the late Prime Minister Sun Shuaio, and even the King of Chu can't recognize it at once (see dream).

In feudal times, you changed from satirizing the emperor to satirizing his officials. During the period of Wu Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, the Queen of Zhao, because an official who joined the army coveted the official silk of Wu State, asked an excellent man to put on official clothes and pretend to join the army so that other actresses could tease him from the side. After that, the wonderful performance was called joining the army, which developed from one foot color to two feet color. Those who are teased are called "joining the army", and those who tease him are called "Canggu".

In the late Tang dynasty, the drama of joining the army developed into a multi-person performance, and the plot of the drama was more complicated. Besides the color of men's feet, there are also women's feet. In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, it was renamed "Zaju". In the Song Dynasty, five names appeared, each of which had its own division of labor, namely: ① "Drama Head", also known as "Mud at the End", planned to perform, ranking first in class one; (2) "Leading the play" is the specific arrangement of the performance, and it is also a "costume"; 3 "sub-net" is the original army; ④ The "secondary end" is the original stork. When these four feet are not enough, adding a foot color called "Pretending to be lonely" is still funny and ridiculous despite the above changes; However, at this time, people in the street are often the object of ridicule. For example, the program "Eye Drops Acid" tells the story that the acid scholar used eye drops to treat people ineffectively, and "Old Lonely Dandan" tells the dispute between an old man and a young woman. These plays include jokes of scholars and women, as well as beggars, petty officers, thieves and monks. Therefore, in the five colors, the sub-network and the sub-terminal are still the main executors.

The above three kinds of arts, temple fair and washe goulan, are subdivided into many kinds, which are collectively called "Baixi" or "Sanqu". Since Qin and Han Dynasties, there has been a tradition of concentrated performance in Baixi. The performance places in the court of Han dynasty are optimistic; Since the Northern Wei Dynasty, the venue for this performance has been changed to a temple. Yang Di concentrated the "Three Music" in Luoyang and divided it into nine parts: ① Le Yan, ② Shang Qing, ③ Xiliang, ④ Funan, ⑤ Koryo, ⑦ Qiuci, ⑦ Anguo, ⑧ Shule and ⑨ Guo Kang. Every year, from the first day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month, an eight-mile-long place is set up outside the palace entrance to concentrate all kinds of scattered music for officials and envoys of various countries to watch at will. In the Tang Dynasty, in addition to court performances, performance venues for singing, dancing and acrobatics were also located in several big temples in Chang 'an. In Song Dynasty, Qian Yi said in the Annals of New South Wales: "Chang 'an Opera is mostly concentrated in Ci 'en, the small one is in Qinglong, and the second one is Fushou. Nieber said more than Tang Bao. " In addition to hundreds of performances, there are also "changes", that is, rap, literary changes and street novels that do not belong to Buddhist stories. The commodity economy developed in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Tokyo (now Kaifeng), the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, became a prosperous big commercial city. In addition to Suoguo Temple, there are washes specially designed for various artistic performances in Tokyo. According to Song Mengyuan's Dream of Tokyo, at the beginning of12nd century, laundry rooms in Tokyo have spread all over Sangjiawazi, Zhongwa, Liwa, Zhujiaqiao Wazi, Zhouxiwazi and Zhoubeiwazi, among which the laundry room in the east of the city is the largest. There are not only several tile houses in this area, but also dozens of "Goulan sheds" in each tile house, with more than 50. Washe is a place where many kinds of geisha have been performed for many years. Artists in Washe take busking as their profession, and their audiences are mainly citizens, that is, handicraft workers and businessmen, as well as intellectuals, bureaucrats and nobles. Although Washe gathered all kinds of geisha in one place, they all performed in their own goulan shed. There are many kinds of geisha performed by Washe Goulan, including novels, lectures on history, Zhugongdiao, Hesheng, martial arts, acrobatics, puppet shows, shadow plays, jokes, riddles, dances, funny performances and so on. There are also "zaju" developed from burlesque. The Washe Goulan in Lin 'an (now Hangzhou), the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, inherited the system of the Northern Song Dynasty, but zaju developed and improved in quantity and quality. All kinds of geisha in Washe Goulan concentrated their performances to attract the audience. They observed each other, competed with each other, absorbed each other and gradually merged, which promoted the formation of China traditional operas. Song Zaju originated from burlesque, which is a comprehensive opera art formed by absorbing various geisha in Washe Goulan.

There are always different opinions about the origin and formation of China traditional opera. The following are some representative folk sayings, which are summarized as follows.

Opera originated from ancient witches, and Wang Guowei, an ancient wizard, put forward in Textual Research on Opera in Song and Yuan Dynasties: "In fact, ancient witches took singing and dancing as their vocation and also entertained people." He also said that Song of the South called wizards "ghosts". "among witches, there must be someone who looks like a god ... as for bathing LAN fangmu, the clothes are beautiful and beautiful; An Ge is slow, advocating it, and singing and dancing are also prosperous; Riding the wind and carrying clouds, the words of new knowledge are born, meaning debauchery. If it is, it is the duty of the spirit, or like a god, or dancing to entertain the god, covering the bud of later drama, and there are already people who have survived. " He also believes that "the ancients are superior, but they are just talking about singing and dancing." Since the Han dynasty, stories have been staged occasionally; The combination of song and dance performance actually started in the Northern Qi Dynasty. Simplify things, not so much drama as dance. Then the source of world drama began. "

China traditional opera is influenced by Indian Brahma drama. Xu Dishan made a comparative study of China Opera and Indian Brahma Opera from the aspects of literary heart and style (that is, content and form) in Brahma Opera and its dribs and drabs in Han Opera, and reached the following conclusions: ① Brahma Opera is not a pure tragedy, and everything will eventually reunite, and "reunion doctrine can summarize the literary heart of Brahma Opera"; "The bottom of Brahma drama is purely ideal, so it can't produce real tragedy or comedy. This Indian thought is fully reflected in Pipa. " The ideal of "loyalty and filial piety" described in China's plays is as unrealistic and uncritical as the Brahman thought described in Brahman's plays. (2) Vatican Opera and Chinese Opera are based on legends, creations and miscellaneous strings. (3) In plot development, Brahma drama has 10 items, which are beginning, effort, possibility of success, inevitability of success, ending, seed, falling, foil, accident and reunion. Many operas (such as Kill a Dog and Persuade a Husband, Zhang Tianshi, etc.). ) can be included in this 10 item. (4) "Vatican playwrights don't like to use pure and elegant language or pure slang, so the most beautiful language is elegant and popular. This is the same as the expression used in China's plays, that is, there is elegance in elegance and vulgarity in vulgarity. In addition, Xu Dishan also talked about the similarities between Vatican Opera and Chinese Opera in the form of performance and the appellation of foot color. His conclusion is: "If it weren't for the Indian influence, the changes in China's drama could be regarded as a coincidence between the two countries. Opera originated from puppet show and shadow play. Sun put forward in the Textual Research on Puppet Show that the puppet show and shadow play in the Song Dynasty were "derived from operas and dramas since the Song and Yuan Dynasties; Even all the great dramas of later generations originated from this. Used in the system of China traditional opera, such as singing by one person in the Northern Song Dynasty; The division, chorus and mutual singing of Nanqu, as well as the boastful names of people with feet, the paintings of people with feet, and the attention of excellent people to footwork; It happened because of the puppet show. "

Traditional Chinese opera began in the Spring and Autumn Period at the latest and was completed in the Tang Dynasty. Ren Erbei said in "Play, Tease and Play": "Opera itself existed in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and it is a natural thing in society. It goes without saying that using these two words to represent drama is a matter of a small number of people. " He disagreed with Wang Guowei's view that real drama originated in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and that real drama was not equal to mature drama. Sun Shuai 'ao, a Zhou drama (that is, a dream), is naive, but it is also a true drama (according to the postscript of Tang teasing). He also proposed: "In ancient China, there were songs and dances first, and who was more disciplined when writing according to the volume; Secondly, it has a relatively free subject; The two developed separately, and at the latest in the Han Dynasty, the voice, volume and white branches were combined with each other, and the story was applied by communication and became a musical. ..... Since the musical became more and more developed, it has been strongly stimulated by Hu Dance and Hu Opera since the Tang Dynasty, interacting with legends, novels, chanting and various literature and art prevailing in the society at that time, and the question and answer of endorsement has generally deepened. Therefore, following the natural trend of geisha's development, there are five things: music, song, dance, acting and white, just like * * * *. (According to "Tang teasing and discerning style")

These theories all put forward their own basis. However, there are many factors in the formation of China's opera. For example, the origin of witch dance is indeed very old, but the original song and dance is not just witch dance. Puppet show and shadow play also have an influence on traditional drama. In the process of the formation of Southern Opera, it is indeed a fact that Shadow Play is popular in Wenzhou and the southeast coastal areas. Zhu once banned puppet shows in Fujian, and so did his student Chen Chun (according to He). However, it would be a pity to say that the Southern Opera only comes from puppets, only one is given, and everything else is left behind. At that time, in the south of the Yangtze River and the southeast coast, all kinds of song and dance arts in rural areas were very developed, and the influence of these arts on opera was also spotty. As for the influence of puppet show and shadow play on the formation of Yuanqu, the influence of Brahma play on the formation of China traditional opera is still lack of evidence and needs to be studied.

The debate about the formation time of traditional Chinese opera is a problem with different views on the concept of traditional Chinese opera. It is generally believed that the performing arts should be distinguished from the traditional dramas in China. Acting, dancing, singing, singing and dancing, cross talk, rap and martial arts are all performing arts; Although drama is also a form of performing arts, we can't call all performing arts drama. Wang Guowei described the drama in Song and Yuan Dynasties as a real drama, which means defining the concept scope. As far as Chinese opera is concerned, the word drama should be beyond reproach.

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