Huachao Opera

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

Applicant: Zijin County, Guangdong Province

Item No.: 219

Project No.: Ⅳ - 75

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: Traditional Drama

Region: Guangdong Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Zijin County, Guangdong Province

Protection unit: Huachao opera troupe of Zijin County

Introduction to Huachao Opera:

Applicant: Zijin County, Guangdong Province

Huachao opera, originated from the sacrificial ceremony of "shenchao" in Zijin County, is popular in Hakka area of eastern Guangdong Province. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Zijin County's "God Dynasty" music and dance has been deeply loved by the villagers. Later, in order to please the audience, the divine artists often sing anecdotes with ditty after the ceremony. This kind of performance is humorous and flowery, which is in sharp contrast with the devout and solemn God Dynasty. People like it more and call it "flower Dynasty". At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, artist Ye Chunlin organized a Changchun class to perform the flower Dynasty. At this time, there were Cantonese opera, Tea Picking Opera and Han Opera puppet show performances in Zijin County. Huachao opera artists absorbed the repertoire, tunes and performing skills of these operas, which enhanced the artistic expression of Huachao opera. At the peak of Huachao opera, there were 19 troupes and more than 100 artists in Zijin County. Famous troupes such as dingchangchun, zihuachun, qingxiangchun and dinghuaxi performed in more than 10 Hakka dialect counties in eastern Guangdong.

In the process of development, Huachao opera has accumulated hundreds of traditional operas, such as "picking flowers in autumn", "selling groceries", "three officials entering the house", "transition" and so on. Its lyrics are easy to understand, commonly used slang, allegorical sayings, puns. The singing music is mainly composed of shenchao tune and folk ditty, and sometimes Hakka folk songs. Generally, there are only three kinds of roles: Xiaosheng, Xiaodan and clown. They are fan flower, handkerchief flower, longgoujiao and chuanxinshou. Their performances are simple and fresh.

After the founding of new China, as a professional performing group, Zijin Huachao opera company organized and performed some traditional plays, created and performed modern plays such as Sudan, ziyunying and hongshiling, and transplanted and adapted plays such as Liu Sanjie and qiaoyinyuan. The performing arts of Huachao opera have been greatly improved. The division of labor of the original roles has become more detailed. At the same time, it has absorbed the performing skills of other operas, such as water sleeves and posture. Singing music not only uses the form of combination of Qupai, but also uses the way of plate change. Actors like Deng Guanyun, Liu enfang, Chen Yexing and Chen Shujun are active on the stage. Huachao opera is constantly performed in Zijin Mountain Area and nearby small and medium-sized cities, causing a certain impact.

The traditional themes of Huachao opera are mostly from folklore, and most of them advocate positive themes such as punishing evil and promoting good, loyalty and patriotism, freedom of marriage and so on. The Hakkas' humanistic ideas, such as Confucianism, cultivation and education, are fully displayed in Huachao opera. Therefore, Huachao opera has high academic research value in folk literature, folk music, folk culture and religious culture. At present, although the professional troupes of Huachao opera perform in the countryside on schedule, and also perform in major local festivals and some folk activities, the performance of Huachao opera is not often seen, and the audience is decreasing day by day, so the problem is more prominent.