Chapter 14 Section 3 Ancient Gardens and Drama Music

The relationship between gardens and drama is first manifested in various forms of stages in Chinese gardens, especially in royal gardens. The Dehe Garden in the Summer Palace is a theater. The stage inside is a three-story theater building. It was built in 1894 and is the last royal stage.This theater building is 21 meters high, with three upper and lower floors that can be connected. There is also a high and open cellar under the stage, and a deep well at the bottom of the cellar. According to research, this is to resonate with the singing on the stage.The types of operas performed on this stage were mainly Peking opera, which was later called national opera.Masters such as Tan Xinpei and Yang Xiaolou, who symbolize the maturity and finalization of Peking Opera, often perform here for Empress Dowager Cixi.Some people compare this stage to the cradle of Peking Opera, which makes sense.There is also a smaller stage in the Summer Palace. It is in the Oriole Pavilion in the west of the promenade. The performances on the stage at that time were mainly the so-called folk art now, including rap and singing such as big drums.This small stage also has a well under the stage.On the east bank of the North Sea, there is a courtyard built around the water called Huafangzhai. It is a courtyard-style building with a rectangular pool of blue ripples along the foundation of the house in the middle.The south house is built in the style of a stage. When singing, the sound will be transmitted across the water to the Baosha in front of the main hall in the north house and the listening places in the east and west side halls.This is also a treatment of water resonance!The Qinquan Corridor in Beihai Jingxin Zhai is located in the pool and surrounded by mountains on three sides. Singing in it, you can get both water harmony and mountain response.This design can also be found in other gardens.The Shuixin Pavilion in Jixiao Mountain Villa, also known as the stage, plays here, and the reverberation effect formed by the water surface and the corridors on the four banks is extremely pleasant.The stage in the Cuijin Garden of Prince Gong’s Mansion in Beijing is another form. The stage is set in the hall, which is similar to a folk theater, but the exquisitely decorated boxes and the colorful paintings on the hall are extremely gorgeous, which is the atmosphere of the palace.The sound in the hall is crisp and melodious, and it can be warmed up when listening to operas in winter. Compared with the outdoor stage, it has the advantage that it can be used in all seasons.Almost all the gardens of other palaces in Beijing have stage.Some temple gardens also have stages, such as Baiyun Temple and Jinshan Temple, which have places dedicated to opera singing.In general, the halls in private gardens can also hold hall performances.

In the garden, burning incense, or facing the stream, or sitting in the quiet room, or in the new bamboo bushes, or under the branches of spring flowers, playing a qin, playing the flute, are all joys in the garden.Wang Wei's famous article: "Sitting alone in the secluded Huanghuang [Huanghuang], playing the piano and screaming again; people in the deep forest don't know, but the bright moon comes to shine", it is a realistic work in his Wangchuan villa.Although the beauty of a garden depends on visual appreciation of the shape of the scenery, the aesthetic feeling of hearing is also indispensable in the garden.

In Jichang Garden in Wuxi, trickling springs are introduced into the caves of the rockery. In the environment of rocks and rocks with different resonances, there is a sound of ding-dong.The garden within a garden in the Summer Palace is imitated from the Zijichang Garden. When changing the scenery, this unique feature was not forgotten, but it has undergone changes, using the water drop, processing natural rocks, supplementing artificial stacking, and forming a scene of Yuqin Gorge. In the case of different water flow rates, there is a constant flow of water, and there is no sound. On the way to the Garden of Harmonious Interest, the sound is always in the ear before entering the garden. It is known as the sound in the Garden of Harmonious Interest.

These sounds are all artificial sounds of nature with sound and rhyme [Lai Lai].Calling birds into the garden and listening to them sing from time to time is also a kind of musical beauty.These all reflect the pursuit of sound in ancient gardens.During the Liu and Song Dynasties of the Southern Dynasties, Xu Zhanzhi, the governor of Nanyanzhou (now Yangzhou), built "wind pavilions, moon views, blowing platforms, and piano rooms" in Shugang, among which the blowing platforms and the piano room are undoubtedly places for entertainment.There is a poem by Du Mu of the Tang Dynasty, "The green mountains are hidden and the water is far away, the grass in the south of the Yangtze River is not withered in autumn, and the twenty-four bridges are bright and moonlit. Where can the jade people teach to play the flute?" Up to now, the reconstructed twenty-four bridge scenic spot is still here Make a fuss about the word Xiao, and build a listening Xiaolou by the bridge.

The relationship between gardens and drama is also reflected in the description of a large number of garden scenes in the dramas, as well as the storylines unfolding in the gardens under the moon and flowers, which is more common in dramas about gifted scholars and beautiful ladies.Some directly use the garden scenery as the title of the play.The description of the love story between Tang Minghuang and Yang Guifei was taken from the name of the hall in Huaqing Palace in Tang Dynasty.There are many descriptions of the scenery of the temple garden.The description of the garden scene in the Chinese garden is more specific. There is also the appearance of the flower god among the characters. It is used to summarize the scenery and activities in the garden.At the end of the song, "Sad Jiangnan" is also a swan song that expresses the rise and fall of a country with the rise and fall of gardens.