Jinghe Opera

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Jinghe Opera

Applicant: Li County, Hunan Province

Item No.: 179

Project No.: Ⅳ - 35

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: Traditional Drama

Region: Hunan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Li County, Hunan Province

Protection unit: Lixian Jinghe theater Performing Arts Co., Ltd

Brief introduction of Jinghe Opera

Applicant: Li County, Hunan Province

Jinghe opera in Lizhou is a kind of opera popular in Northwest Hunan, Jingzhou and Shashi in Hubei Province. It was named after the Jinghe section of the Yangtze River. In history, it was named Shanghe Luzi, daguanzi and Datai opera. During the Anti Japanese War, it was also called Chu opera, Han Opera and Xiang opera. In 1954, it was officially named Jinghe opera. Jinghe opera began in Yongle period in the early Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, the Qin Opera Troupe came to Lizhou with Li Zicheng army, and the artists scattered everywhere. In the early Qing Dynasty, the "North-South combination" of Chu tune and Qin opera was basically completed, forming the "North-South Road" of Jinghe opera.

The traditional repertoire of Jinghe opera is relatively rich. There are more than 500 preserved operas, including more than 450 of the whole opera and more than 60 of Sanzhe opera. The representative plays include Bai Zi Tu, Chu Gong Fu Qin, Da Hui Jing Zhou, Shuang fu MA, Sha Tan Hui, Cui Ping Shan, fan Wu Ke, Qin Xue Mei, San Niang Jiao Zi, Yi Peng Xue, Si Xia He Nan, etc.

The roles of Jinghe opera can be divided into six parts: Sheng, Xiaosheng, Dan, laodan, Hualian and Chou. Sheng can be divided into Laosheng, zasheng, Zhengsheng and Hongsheng. Dan can be divided into Zhengdan, guimendan, Huadan, Wudan and Yaodan. Hualian can be divided into dahualian, maotouhualian and babahualian. The performance of Jinghe opera stresses the internal and external skills. "Neibakuai" refers to the characters' inner emotions such as joy, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, doubt, infatuation and intoxication, while "waibakuai" refers to the eight external body movements such as cloud hand, stand, kick, waist, horse, arrow step, crotch and footwall. Jinghe opera is famous for its martial arts, especially for its various postures of "fighting the army and horses" and "shaking the shell".

Jinghe Opera Music North and South blend, unique charm. Jinghe opera's North Road singing retains shangqiang, which is the unique special singing style of Jinghe opera. There is another kind of North Road singing, singing with the South Road fixed string, called "South against North", also known as "Zi Mu tune", which is used to express the characters' thoughts, sadness, terror and other emotions, while Zi tune is used to express the emotions of illness, death and so on, which is rare in other PI Huang dramas. There are also many special singing methods in the South and North Road of Jinghe opera, such as 18 boards, 13 boards, eight sentences, dragon tail swinging, South Road positive and negative "horse head tune", positive and negative "boss head", positive and negative "eight screen" and so on. Jinghe opera's singing is loud and grand, and the voice of actors varies according to their professions. Xusheng often uses the edge voice and sand voice, Xiaosheng and Dan use the false voice, Hualian uses "Ben Dai Bian", Xiaohualian and laodan use the original voice. Libai mainly uses Lizhou Mandarin, and a few plays also use Jingbai, Chuanbai, SuBai and Shanxi Bai. The accompaniment instruments of Jinghe opera include two kinds of scenes, namely, Wen and Wu. Wen scenes include huqin, Yueqin, Sanxian, suona and dizi, while Wu scenes include Tanggu, Da Gong, Xiao Gong, Ma Gong, toucymbal and ER cymbal. The traditional playing method of horse Gong is very special, especially throwing the Gong into the air.

Jinghe opera in Lizhou has a long history. It still has a large number of precious original tunes, Tang songs and percussion scores. It has a high academic research value in linguistics, folklore and the history of national music. Due to various reasons, four of the five professional Jinghe opera troupes in Hunan have been disbanded or disintegrated, and only one is still struggling to support. In this situation, it is urgent to rescue and protect Jinghe opera.