Wuyin Opera

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

Applicant: Zibo City, Shandong Province

Project No.: 210

Project No.: Ⅳ - 66

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: Traditional Drama

Region: Shandong Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Zibo City, Shandong Province

Protection unit: Zibo Wuyin opera art inheritance and Protection Center (Zibo Wuyin Opera Theater)

Introduction to Wuyin Opera:

Applicant: Zibo City, Shandong Province

Wuyin opera, formerly known as "elbow drum", originated in Zhangqiu and Licheng of Shandong Province, and is popular in Jinan, Zibo and surrounding areas of central Shandong Province. Its occurrence, development and finalization roughly experienced three periods: Yangge tune, five person class and Wuyin opera.

In the performance of Wuyin opera, the words are pronounced first and then the tune is colloquial. It is called "clouds cover the moon", which is very lyrical. At the beginning, Wuyin opera was mainly performed by Er Xiao (Xiaodan, Xiaosheng) opera and San Xiao (Xiaodan, Xiaosheng, clown) opera. There was no script accompaniment, and the content mostly reflected the folk life. Later, the script accompaniment was added and the repertoire was more abundant. The traditional repertoire of Wuyin opera mainly includes Wang Xiaoer's hastening, Wang Erjie's thinking of her husband, guaimozi, cailouji, Wang Dingbao's borrowing, the story of the wall, Zhao Meirong's watching the lantern, Wang Lin's divorcing his wife, village mother, Wang Po's matchmaking, Zhang Sijie's falling, songlinhui, talking back from relatives, An'an sending rice, etc. Because most of them are the images and living conditions of the local rural women, they have strong flavor of life, strong local characteristics, simple and natural dialects, common folk proverbs and figurative metaphors, which are concise and comprehensive, and deeply loved by the people.

In the development history of Wuyin opera, the early famous actors include Tiedi, Xun Xingwang, Cao Rensheng, Gao Guifang (stage name "half bowl honey"), Li Dexing (stage name "heel pillar"), Wang huankui (stage name "zilaixi"), etc. Later, with the stage name of "fresh cherry", Deng Hongshan became the master of "Wuyin opera". His singing is simple and simple, soft and tactful, which is vividly compared by the common people as "one purr, one ear, and the happy people shed tears.". Deng Hongshan's performance is exquisite and vivid, and his skills of "floating eyebrows", "seeing off eyes" and "flying laogua" can be regarded as a unique opera performance. In the 1930s, Deng Hongshan went to Shanghai EMI company to record. Because of his beautiful singing, the record company presented him with the banner of "five tone master" and "five tone opera" was named after it.

Wuyin opera originated from the folk and rooted in the folk. It has become an indispensable art form for people's festivals, weddings and self entertainment. In recent years, dramatic changes in society, economy, culture and other aspects have brought great impact on Wuyin opera. Coupled with the lagging protection measures and lack of funds, Wuyin opera is in danger of losing its popularity.