Baling Opera

The name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: baling Opera

Applicant: Yueyang City, Hunan Province

Item No.: 178

Project No.: Ⅳ - 34

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: Traditional Drama

Region: Hunan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Yueyang City, Hunan Province

Protection unit: Yueyang Baling opera inheritance Research Institute (Yueyang Art Theater)

Brief introduction to baling Opera:

Applicant: Yueyang City, Hunan Province

Baling opera, formerly known as baxiang opera and also known as Yuezhou troupe, was officially named baling opera in 1953. It is one of the most important operas in Hunan Province. It is popular in Yueyang, Yiyang, Changde, Xiangxi, Changsha, Hubei and Jiangxi. Baling opera originated from Kunqiang in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, and Yiyang opera flowed into Hunan in late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, which had a great influence on the appearance of Gaoqiang in Baling opera. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, baling opera absorbed the artistic factors of other operas, and gradually developed into a relatively stable type of opera.

There are more than 370 traditional operas in Baling opera, most of which are based on historical stories and scripts, and mainly reflect the themes of political and military struggles in the past dynasties. The representative operas include Da Yan Song, Jiu Zi Bian, ye Meng Guan Dai, Cui Zi Ji Qi, Da Cha Suan Liang, Zhang Fei gungu, San Shen assassin, etc. The music of Baling opera is divided into two parts: tune and accompaniment music. The tune is divided into Kun tune, Tan tune and miscellaneous tune minor. The tan tune is divided into South tune and North tune, and each has its own anti tune. At the same time, there is a special singing form, Xi'er Huang. It can skillfully integrate the north and South tune, sing in the South and pull in the north, with unique flavor. The tune is accompanied by huqin, Yueqin and xiaosanxian, supplemented by suona, dizi and changganzi. Percussion instruments used for accompaniment include bangu, Kezi, Tanggu, Daguo, Xiaochao, Yunluo, Malou, etc. there is a complete set of gongs and drums classics, which forms a link of singing, doing, reciting, playing and other performance programs.

The roles of Baling opera are divided into three major lines: Sheng, Dan and Jing. Sheng includes Lao Sheng, San Sheng, Kao Ba, Xiao Sheng and tie bu. Dan includes Lao Dan, Zheng Dan, boudoir, Qiao Zi and ER Xiao. Jing Xing includes Da Hualian, er Jing, Er Mu tou, San Hualian and Si Qilang. Baling opera is sung with zhongzhouyun and huguangyin combined with Xiangbei dialect. It pays special attention to the characterization of characters. It has a relatively complete set of traditional performance procedures, forming a rough, simple, delicate and vivid artistic style. His performances include "eight internal skills" and "eight external skills". "Nei Ba Gong" refers to eight basic techniques of depicting characters' psychology and expressing their emotions, namely, joy, anger, sadness, joy, sadness, sorrow, hatred and shock. "Wai Ba Gong" generally refers to the use of hands, legs, body, neck, beard, wings, plumes, fans and sleeves. The performance of Baling opera pays special attention to eyes. There are more than 30 kinds of eyes commonly used, such as positive eyes, slanting eyes, happy eyes, angry eyes, sad eyes, sick eyes, thief eyes, jealous eyes, flattering eyes, dead eyes, etc. Baling opera artists of past dynasties absorbed folk martial arts and acrobatics in martial arts play, and created many unique performing skills, such as throwing fork, throwing chair, drilling knife circle, drilling fire circle, turning table, folding arhat, tailwind flag and so on. In addition to the commonly used rhymes and dramas, there are also colloquial expressions in Beijing, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Huai, Jin, Mianyang, Tongcheng and other dialects, which are used to express the regional characteristics, identity and personality of some characters.

Baling opera is the representative of drama in Northeast Hunan, and plays an important role in Hunan Province and even in the whole country. Its stage language, repertoire, tune, music, performance and even performance customs carry a lot of historical and cultural information related to Yueyang. It is not only a "living fossil" for the study of Yueyang's history, culture and folk customs, but also a valuable material for the study of the evolution of Chinese opera and the formation and development of local operas. In the middle and late period of the Republic of China, baling opera began to decline and revived after 1949. Now, due to the impact of modern culture, there is only one professional baling Opera Troupe in Yueyang City in Hunan Province, which is on the verge of extinction and in urgent need of rescue and protection.