Changsha ancient painting plays are popular in Changsha, Xiangtan, Zhuzhou, Ningxiang, Liuyang and Pingjiang. It is the most popular and influential ancient painting drama in Hunan. As early as the mid-Qing Dynasty, it became popular and flourished in these places.
The main melody of Changsha ancient painting drama is "Sichuan tune", and most plays adopt "Sichuan tune". Folk call it "Black Boy Play" because it is equipped with silk and bamboo instruments. Influenced by the naughty yellow in Han Dynasty, Heizai opera gradually moved closer to banqiang music, including first-class, second-class, third-class, guide-board, sad-hearted, four-chamber sad-hearted, singing and sharp-pitched. The main repertoires are Pan Fu, Sacrifice Tower and Draw lots.
Changsha Huagu Opera is a Hunan Huagu Opera with Changsha Mandarin as the stage language and great influence. It is developed from rural folk songs, folk tunes and local flower drums, including playing flower drums and ground flower drums-flower drum lanterns, and has a history of 160 years.
Changsha Flower Drum Opera has developed from the "second small" of clown and Xiao Dan to the "third small" of clown, Xiao Dan and Xiao Sheng, and then from the "third small" to various roles. However, it is still an important feature of Changsha ancient painting drama.
In the traditional repertoire of Changsha ancient paintings and operas, there are a large number of small plays and passbook plays, which are the most distinctive and representative repertoires. Small plays include "opposite plays" and "three small plays". Traditional Chinese operas are mostly developed on the basis of folk songs, fishing songs, minor tunes, flower drums and bamboo lanterns.
Zhangzi Opera, an ancient painting drama in Changsha, is often regarded as a separate performance in the drama, and it is the most popular repertoire in Changsha ancient painting drama. After the founding of New China, relying on the cooperation of old artists and literary and art workers, the traditional plays of Changsha ancient paintings and operas have been excavated and adapted. There are 50 scripts such as Chopping Wood with Liu Hai, Lulin Club, Yin and Yang Fan, Rent Collection in Nanzhuang and Golden Frog in Liu Hai Play.
Musically, it belongs to the "Qupai couplet". The conjoined method connects many tunes with the same tone according to the needs of shaping the image and keeping the vocal layout unified and coordinated, so as to achieve the purpose of portraying the characters and expressing the plot. However, in terms of expression techniques, it is supplemented by plate changes to make up for the lack of tunes.
Changsha tune can be divided into three categories: Sichuan tune, Gong tune and minor tune.
The first two categories are called "positive tune", which have relatively fixed vocal cavity format and melody characteristics; The melody, rhythm and mode of the latter kind of tunes have changed greatly, and the original folk song structure has been basically maintained. Paper-cut music of Changsha ancient painting drama, with tunes from folk songs and classical music cards.
On the basis of the "three small" dramas, Changsha ancient painting drama has developed the roles of life, Dan, Jing and Ugliness. However, the clown, Xiao Dan and Xiao Sheng still represent the unique artistic style of the play. Clowns can be divided into passbook ugliness, short ugliness, official ugliness, rotten cloth ugliness, milk ugliness and so on.
The accompaniment band of Changsha ancient painting drama is divided into two scenes: civil and military. There is a drum suona in the literary field. Drum is the main musical instrument, shaped like erhu, made of bamboo snake skin, with clear and rich timbre, which is used to keep the tune in accompaniment; Suona is divided into big suona and small suona, which are mainly used for knocking on doors. There are drums, gongs, big bills, small bills and small gongs in the martial arts field. Clap your hands is "Kezi".
Changsha Flower Drum Opera in Changsha was divided into five artistic schools: Yiyang, Xihu, Ningxiang, Liling and Changsha.
Among them, Ningxiang Road, represented by Xueqiandiao, plays more romantic dramas such as Xuediao Uncle. Yiyang and Xihu Road, represented by "Batong School" and "Xihu Tune", have performed many plays, such as Xue Mei Jiaozi and Meng Jiangnv. Changsha Road has to devote itself to the innovation of vocal music because it is accessible to urban and rural areas. Good at minor, delicate handling, clear pronunciation and mellow voice, euphemistic and fresh, sincere and pleasant, and developed string accompaniment.
After nearly a hundred years of artistic exchange, various flower-drum operas have merged with each other, forming a relatively complete Changsha flower-drum opera system today.
Yueyang ancient painting drama originated from Linxiang ancient painting drama and was popular in Yueyang, Miluo, Linxiang, Tongcheng, Chongyang and other places in Hubei. In the Records of Baling County during the Jiaqing period of Qing Dynasty, there are records about the prosperity of rural flower drum opera in Baling area.
As far as music is concerned, the main vocal cavity of Yueyang Opera's ancient painting cavity is called "Qin cavity". The tunes of "Qin Opera" include single sentence, double sentence, dreamy tone, yin tone, sad tone and one-word tone.
In addition, other folk songs in Yueyang Opera, such as Sifu Tune, Acacia Tune, Noisy Wugeng, Ten Embroideries, Huimen Tune, Ten Cups of Wine and Plum Blossom Introduction, are often used during this period.
Obviously, "Qin Opera" was influenced by China's tunes. There are many operas in Yueyang Flower Drum Opera that are mainly based on "Qin Opera", so when it spread to Tongcheng and Chongyang in southern Hubei, it was deeply loved by the local people because of its musical homology and similar language, and gradually formed a new local opera called "Violin Opera".
The main repertoires of Yueyang Opera are Four Clothes, Toning Back, The Story of the Forest Dew, Double Stealing Flowers, Double Selling Wine, Cowherd and Weaving Girl, etc.
Whether it's "Shaanxi Opera" or "Sichuan Tune", Heizi is accompanied by drums and other strings, and his pronunciation is gloomy and simple.
Yueyang ancient painting opera and Changsha ancient painting opera are collectively called "Gong Opera". "Gong cavity" is also called "Gong cavity", that is, when singing, it is accompanied by gongs and drums, regardless of strings and voices.
On the basis of local gongs and drums music such as Mupi tune, Trojan tune, Ciqi tune, Liu Si tune and Batong brand, Yueyang ancient painting drama absorbed some banqiang music of naughty Han Dynasty, and formed a plate-like combined structure such as "guide plate", "third-rate", "emergency board" and "scattered board".
The third tune of Yueyang ancient painting drama is called "minor", which is local folk music with strong local color. For example, picking tea tune, looking at mother tune, inverted tune, four seasons green, picking lotus tune, washing vegetable heart and other folk songs.
Yueyang Flower Drum Opera also used some Chinese-tune gongs and drums classics, such as "Wan Nianhuan", "A Flower", "Moth", "Victory Order", "Liu" and "Beside the Dressing Table" as the music for the entrance.
As an independent drama, Yueyang ancient painting drama was originally performed as a "second small" drama with weak plot, that is to say, once it is a lifetime, there will be "third small" dramas, that is, once it is an ugly drama, it will use local minor.
Later, Yueyang ancient painting opera was influenced by Hubei Han opera and other operas, and performed plays with strong plots and many characters.
Changde Flower Drum Opera is mainly popular in Changde, Taoyuan, Hanshou, Linli, Dayong, Cili and other places.
Changde Flower Drum Opera originated from folk "tea-picking lanterns" and "car lights" and flowed into cities in the late Qing Dynasty. During the reign of Xuan Tong, Changsha Daily recorded that Changde banned "lantern prostitutes", which forced ancient Chinese paintings and dramas to co-perform, which was directly influenced by Changde's Chinese dramas.
In the past, many artists of ancient paintings and operas studied China operas and joined Han classes. They often perform "two pots" in harmony with Chinese, which is called "two classes" locally. This situation continued until the founding of New China.
Changde's music is also "Sichuan tune", "Gong tune" and "minor". The main repertoires are Watching Flowers in the Shadows, Jumping on the Pink Wall, Picking Mushrooms, Going Down the Mountain, and Death of Second Sister You, which were adapted after the founding of New China.
Hengyang ancient painting drama is a kind of folk drama popular in southern Hunan. Different places have different names. The lanterns in Hengyang, Hengnan, Leiyang and Changning, the ground flower drums in Youxian and Chaling, the lanterns in Anren, the lanterns in Yongxing and the Diao Chan in Jiangyou.
Shaoyang ancient painting drama, formerly known as ancient painting ancient painting drama, rose in old Shaoyang county and began to be called Shaoyang ancient painting drama in 1950s. Mainly popular in Shaoyang City, Shaodong, Xinshao, Shaoyang, Longhui, Dongkou, Xinhua and other counties and cities. It is one of the most local operas in Hunan ancient painting, and the stage language of Qihe Baohe School is combined with Shaoyang local language.
On the basis of Lantern Opera, Shaoyang Opera absorbed the essence of Shidao Opera, God-competing stories and local traditional songs and dances, and later absorbed some stage art forms of Qi Opera, with rich and wonderful performing arts, especially the clown and the new performing arts.
Shaoyang, formerly known as Baoqing, is a place with profound cultural origin, developed folk culture and prosperous singing and dancing. Shaoyang ancient painting opera is developed on the basis of local folk songs and dances "Duality Opera" and "Lantern Festival".
"Pairing", or "Pairing Flower Drum", is performed by the clown and Xiao Dan. Xiao Dan danced with a flower fan, and the clown took a small step, singing and dancing. "Car and horse lights", that is, once in the car, an ugly cart, an ugly horse riding, singing and dancing on the same stage. Its "car" and "horse" are made of bamboo and silk and tied to the actors. Both "Duality Play" and "Cars and Horses Lantern" are played with gongs and drums, accompanied by huqin and suona.
As far as style is concerned, Shaoyang ancient painting drama can be divided into three schools: East, South and West.
East Road originated from "Lantern for Cars and Horses", with Sichuan sounds and gongs and drums as the main musical materials. Artists are all actors, mostly wizards, practicing witchcraft while singing.
South Road originated from "Dui Gu Hua", and its music is mainly based on signing and minor. There are many female artists, who often perform in the same class as acrobats who step on soft ropes, or both, stepping on soft ropes during the day and singing ancient paintings at night.
West Road and South Road are of the same origin, and the music is mainly in minor. Artists are mostly wizards, singing while walking as wizards, mainly male characters, and occasionally female dancers. West Road and South Road merged earlier, so the only difference in style is East Road and South Road.
In the early days of Shaoyang Flower Drum Opera, it was mostly a performance of "social fire", which was an amateur class club for religious activities such as Nuo and Qing Niangniang during festivals and rural activities, that is, a temporary invitation to perform on the threshing floor and lawn.
During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, semi-professional and professional class clubs appeared, and most of the members were craftsmen, farmers, wizards and so on. They are busy farming and study art in their spare time. Some of them sing opera as witches while walking, and their performances are mostly in the suburbs of the county. Some professional clubs tour all the year round, covering parts of urban and rural areas in Guizhou, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Hubei, Yunnan and Sichuan, so they are called "Jianghu classes".
Liling ancient painting drama is popular in Liling, Hunan. It is deeply loved by Liling people and influenced by the surrounding operas, which has become the unique charm of ancient paintings and operas.
The Flower Drum Opera in the above places is a wonderful work in Chinese literary gardens. In particular, the famous Hunan ancient painting drama "Liu Hai Pi Chai", which is popular all over the country, is deeply loved by people all over the country with its well-known singing style of "Bi Gu Diao".