Xiang Opera

Introduction

Hunan's principal regional opera, joining gaoqiang and tanqiang

Xiang opera is the principal regional opera of Hunan, once centred on Changsha and Xiangtan, with branches such as Changsha and Hengyang Xiang opera. Between the early Ming and the Jiajing era, the Yiyang and Kunshan tunes brought into Hunan merged with local dialect and folk music to form it; it came to combine four vocal systems: gaoqiang, tanqiang, kunqiang and dipaizi. Much of its repertoire derives from Song-Yuan nanxi, Yuan zaju and Ming-Qing chuanqi, such as The Story of the Lute and The White Rabbit. It is performed in Changsha, Xiangtan, Zhuzhou, Hengyang and parts of southern Hunan, western Jiangxi and northern Guangdong.

Timeline

1. 1450OriginBetween the early Ming and the Jiajing era, the Yiyang and Kunshan tunes reached Hunan and merged with local dialect and folk music to form Xiang opera.
2. 1800EvolutionIn the Qing it absorbed tanqiang (nanlu and beilu), settling into four coexisting vocal systems: gaoqiang, tanqiang, kunqiang and dipaizi.

Heritage Listings

1. 2006National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage1st batch · IV-13 · nominated by Hengyang · Hunan
2. 2008National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage2nd batch · IV-127 · nominated by Changsha · Hunan and others