A "southern opera" is generally considered to be the south of "the south of the city". Southern Opera, also known as "Southern Tune", is the only local opera that can be performed on Miao stage in Tujia areas in western Hubei.
The emergence of Southern Opera can be traced back to the feudal dynasty of Yuan Dynasty, which implemented the Tusi system for Tujia people in western Hubei. At that time, Rongmei Tusi was in a corner, and the drama activities of Rongmei Tusi had a great influence on the development of Southern Opera. After the Ming Dynasty, Tujia people in western Hubei, under the leadership of Tusi, began to communicate with the outside world, attached importance to Sinology and studied Confucian classics. Among those who are keen to make friends with people from the Central Plains, there are quite a few talents, and poetry writers are constantly appearing.
Rongmei Toast also trained a family troupe. During the reign of Kangxi, Tian Shunnian, his19th descendant, once performed the Peach Blossom Fan, a large-scale Kunqu opera created by the opera writer Kong, which became a much-told story in the history of cultural exchange between China and Turkey. Rongmei Toast Professional Troupe has a group of opera masters and trained many artists with excellent color and art.
After returning to their homeland, some artists who were also trained by Rongmei Tusi stayed in Hefeng City, and most of them went to Shinanfu, Sangzhi, Shimen and other places in western Hunan to continue to spread the art of Southern Opera.
Southern Opera is a multi-cavity opera, including Southern Opera, Northern Opera, Road Opera, Kunqu Opera and Miscellaneous Opera. The North-South Tune originated from Chu Tune and is directly related to Jing Hexi. The southern tunes are gentle and euphemistic, while the northern tunes are loud and smooth. On the road, there is a drama of Tanxi and Chuanbangzi, and the sound cavity evolved from Qin cavity.
Three-cavity performance on the same stage has been circulating for a long time, and it has been integrated with local art, language, folk music and local customs, and gradually evolved into a drama with local characteristics. South Opera 14 soundboard, North Opera 12, 6 on the road, 7 on the North Opera, 20 on the South Opera, sandals and other minor 10.
Southern Opera can be divided into four lines: life, Dan, purity and ugliness. Jing Jiao, Xiao Sheng, Sheng Jiao, Lao Dan and Yao Dan sang the original sound, while Zheng Dan and Xiao Dan sang the chorus. The performance of Southern Opera focuses on workmanship, "especially singers", and the overall performance is "big hands and big horns".
In terms of makeup and character modeling, South Opera "focuses on dressing up first, so-called playing the poor and playing the rich", which has distinctive Tujia national characteristics in makeup and modeling. The accompaniment music of Nanxi Opera consists of two parts: string and percussion.
Strings are a kind of accompaniment music, and the musical instruments are Jinghu, Erhu, Yueqin, Sanxian, Suona and Gaipan. The North-South Road Opera is mainly played by Jinghu, and the cover plate is mainly played on the road. Percussion is an important part of southern opera music, which not only plays the role of accompaniment, but also plays the role of shaping characters and rendering atmosphere. Percussion instruments include drums, gongs, cymbals, blunt cymbals, horse gongs, hook gongs, kezi, side drums, ruler boards and so on.
During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, the landlord class in Xianfeng County began to set up the Southern Opera Troupe, and professional and playmate clubs rose. At the end of Daoguang, Deng Xiaochi, the rich man of Pucaotang in Xianfeng County, founded the Southern Opera Tianyuan Class. Later, Deng Xiaochi's younger brother Deng Xiaobi founded "continuous improvement". By the beginning of the 20th century, Southern Opera had spread all over Xianfeng County.
Xianfeng South Opera really flourished after the founding of New China. Nie, Tang Huiyun and Yang Xing, the old artists of elementary South Opera, raised their own funds, made their own props and re-established the South Opera Troupe. Members of the troupe work during the day and perform at night. Xiao Jihe, then the county magistrate, named it "Labor Troupe", which fully affirmed the development of Southern Opera.
Nie Xuanjie, a blind artist, has made great contributions to the development of Xianfeng South Opera. He is familiar with the singing methods of South, North and Road in Southern Opera. Before the founding of New China, he painstakingly founded and operated amateur theatrical troupes. After the founding of New China, he made great contributions to the establishment of the "Labor League".
From 1957, with the help of the master of this school, Nie spent three years recalling and sorting out more than 300 traditional plays, accounting for more than half of the traditional plays in southwest Hubei, among which 67 plays were published in Hubei Local Opera Series. Nie's "Four Places in Henan" series fills the gap in other plays.
Later, Xia, a performance artist of Xianfeng County's Southern Opera, and another Southern Opera actor were ordered to go to the provincial capital to participate in the drama performance. Their classic southern opera "Eight Diagrams" won a full house applause and was highly praised by Tian Han, chairman of the National Dramatists Association, and Kyle, chairman of the National Musicians Association and president of the Central Conservatory of Music. Tian Han thinks:
The martial arts singing of Nanxi Opera is different from other operas.
It is different from Beijing, Han nationality, Guangdong and Pingju. Kyle's evaluation is:
The southern opera sings loudly and forcefully, like the sound of a deep mountain canyon.
In the early 1980s, after the "Jingnan Debate" of singing opera or southern opera, Xianfeng County Southern Troupe ushered in its second spring. Xianfeng Southern Opera began to transplant other operas, such as the newly edited historical Kunqu Opera "Fifteen Passes" and the newly edited historical Peking Opera "Jiang Xianghe". In particular, it is refreshing to transplant a number of modern plays, such as The Marriage of Little Erhei, Jiang Jie, Sanliwan and Sanjie Liu.