Shanghai Opera (Huju)

Introduction

From tanhuang and shenqu to Shanghai's own regional opera

Huju is Shanghai's representative regional opera, performed in Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou area of Zhejiang. It grew from field songs and folk tunes along the Huangpu River and, influenced by tanci storytelling, took shape as tanhuang. Two-person duizi plays and larger tongchang ensemble plays appeared in the Daoguang reign of the Qing; in 1898 performers began singing in city teahouses as bentan, the name changed to shenqu in 1914, plays drawn from civilized drama and current events followed after 1927, and with the founding of the Shanghai Huju Society in 1941 the form was named Huju. Its music combines metrical-variation (banqiang) and named-tune (qupai) systems led by the bamboo-tube erhu, with a soft Jiangnan water-town character; it is known for modern-dress plays, and its repertoire includes Antang Xianghui, Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai, Luohan Qian and Thunderstorm.

Timeline

1. 1840OriginTanhuang develops two-person duizi plays and ensemble tongchang plays
2. 1898EvolutionPerformers move into Shanghai city teahouses; the form is known as bentan
3. 1941EvolutionThe Shanghai Huju Society is founded and shenqu is renamed Huju

Heritage Listings

1. 2006National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Chinafirst batch · traditional drama · Ⅳ-54