MUZI MUZIChinese Matrix

Chinese National Opera (Minzu Geju)

From the yangge ground to the opera stage

Introduction

Chinese opera with a full composed score for each work, drawing on folk song and traditional opera

Chinese national opera is the form of Chinese opera that grew out of the New Yangge movement in Yan'an in the 1940s: composers write a complete score for each work, songs alternate with spoken dialogue, the music draws on the tunes of folk song, traditional opera and narrative singing, with chorus and orchestra, and the stories are mostly about ordinary people. It is not a regional opera genre but a branch of Chinese opera standing beside xiqu. The White-Haired Girl, created collectively at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts with a libretto by He Jingzhi and Ding Yi and music by Ma Ke, Zhang Lu, Qu Wei and others, premiered in Yan'an in 1945 and is regarded as its landmark; later came Liu Hulan, Little Erhei's Marriage, The Red Guards of Honghu Lake, Sister Jiang and Daughter of the Party. Dance dramas belong to Chinese dance drama, and adaptations made by regional opera troupes remain part of their genres.

Timeline

1945 to present
1920 · EvolutionIn the 1920s Li Jinhui wrote song-and-dance dramas for children, The Sparrow and the Child (1920), The Grape Fairy (1922) and The Little Painter (1926), telling complete stories in song and dance: early attempts by Chinese writers at their own music drama.1943 · EvolutionAfter the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art of 1942, teachers and students of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts built a new yangge on the yangge of northern Shaanxi; at the Spring Festival of 1943 they staged the yangge play Brother and Sister Clear the Wasteland, starring Wang Dahua and Li Bo, which swept Yan'an and launched the New Yangge movement that prepared the forms and the people for the new opera.1945 · OriginOn 28 April 1945 The White-Haired Girl, created collectively at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts, with a libretto by He Jingzhi and Ding Yi, music by Ma Ke, Zhang Lu, Qu Wei and others, direction by Wang Bin and Wang Kun as Xi'er, was performed in the Party School hall in Yan'an for the delegates of the Seventh Party Congress; it then ran for more than thirty performances to full houses and is regarded as the landmark of Chinese national opera.1964 · ImpactLittle Erhei's Marriage premiered in Beijing in January 1953 and is called China's first national comic opera; The Red Guards of Honghu Lake premiered in Wuhan in 1959 and ran for 800 performances before the Cultural Revolution; in 1964 the Air Force Political Department troupe premiered Yan Su's Sister Jiang in Beijing, at the height of the form; in 2017 the Ministry of Culture launched a programme to sustain and develop Chinese national opera.
  1. 1920EvolutionIn the 1920s Li Jinhui wrote song-and-dance dramas for children, The Sparrow and the Child (1920), The Grape Fairy (1922) and The Little Painter (1926), telling complete stories in song and dance: early attempts by Chinese writers at their own music drama.
  2. 1943EvolutionAfter the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art of 1942, teachers and students of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts built a new yangge on the yangge of northern Shaanxi; at the Spring Festival of 1943 they staged the yangge play Brother and Sister Clear the Wasteland, starring Wang Dahua and Li Bo, which swept Yan'an and launched the New Yangge movement that prepared the forms and the people for the new opera.
  3. 1945OriginOn 28 April 1945 The White-Haired Girl, created collectively at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts, with a libretto by He Jingzhi and Ding Yi, music by Ma Ke, Zhang Lu, Qu Wei and others, direction by Wang Bin and Wang Kun as Xi'er, was performed in the Party School hall in Yan'an for the delegates of the Seventh Party Congress; it then ran for more than thirty performances to full houses and is regarded as the landmark of Chinese national opera.
  4. 1964ImpactLittle Erhei's Marriage premiered in Beijing in January 1953 and is called China's first national comic opera; The Red Guards of Honghu Lake premiered in Wuhan in 1959 and ran for 800 performances before the Cultural Revolution; in 1964 the Air Force Political Department troupe premiered Yan Su's Sister Jiang in Beijing, at the height of the form; in 2017 the Ministry of Culture launched a programme to sustain and develop Chinese national opera.