Chapter 23 Section 3 Qing Dynasty Court Drama

In the early Qing Dynasty, the court opera followed the old system of the Ming Dynasty, and the performances were mainly undertaken by Jiaofangsi actresses or eunuchs.During the reign of the ancestors in the Qing Dynasty, the eunuchs in the palace had performed "Ming Feng Ji" and You Tong's "Reading Li Sao".Twenty years after Kangxi quelled the "San Francisco Rebellion", the Qing Dynasty entered a period of full restoration and ushered in the so-called "Haiyu Shengping" Kangqian prosperity.The number of performances has increased. The Qing court once issued a special payment of 1,000 taels to erect a high stage at Houzaimen, ordering the Jiaofang to perform "Legend of Mulian" with live tigers, live images, and real horses on stage.Li Xu, a servant of the Imperial Household Department, kept recruiting actresses from the south of the Yangtze River to the palace in order to enrich the palace opera team and satisfy Kangxi's sensual entertainment.

During the Qianlong period, court dramas flourished unprecedentedly.Qianlong was a fan of theater.He issued an edict to expand the court drama organization, and moved the "Hesheng Department" (the Jiaofang Department was changed to "Hesheng Department" in the seventh year of Yongzheng) to Nanhuayuan, which was renamed "Nanfu".Among them, the eunuchs and entertainers were called "inner studies", the artists selected from the Eight Banners to enter the palace were called "banner students", and a large number of folk artists enriched Nanfu, which were called "foreign studies". "Internal learning" can be divided into big and small, and "outside learning" can also be divided into first, second and third.Minority registration, banner registration, and "internal learning" form a tripartite pattern. Its large scale, strong lineup, and frequent drama activities are unprecedented and unprecedented.

In the sixteenth year of Qianlong (AD 1751) and the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong (AD 1771), there were two large-scale celebrations for the Empress Dowager's 60th and 80th birthdays.In the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong (AD 1790), to celebrate Hongli's 80th birthday [Xixi], the capital held a large-scale celebration, with lanterns and festoons everywhere, pavilions built, and a stage every ten steps.Artists from all over the world are proud to come to Beijing to perform, singing, dancing and acrobatics are dazzling.Coupled with Qianlong's six southern tours, he continuously brought back many highly skilled artists from other places, making the Beijing opera world like flowers and brocades, and the fire is cooking oil.

The court of the Qing Dynasty began to use Kunqu Opera and Yiyang tune to sing legends and dramas. In addition to the above-mentioned "Ming Feng Ji", "Reading Li Sao", "Mulian Legend" and "Mulian Legend", Qianlong also ordered the cabinet scholar Zhang Zhao and Prince Zhuang Ke Yun Lu successively "concurrently led the music department" and organized Zhou Xiangyu and other court officials to compile festival plays "Yue Ling Cheng Ying", "Fa Gong Ya Zuo", "Jiu Jiu Da Qing", and a court drama "Quan Shan Jin Ke" (cluster Lian rescue mother story play), "Sheng Ping Bao Raft" (journey to the west story play), "Ding Zhi Chunqiu" (three kingdoms story play), "Loyalty Xuan Tu" (Water Margin story play), "Zhao Dai Xiao Shao" (the story of Yang Jiajiang drama), "Fengshen Tianbang" (Fengshenyanyi story drama), "Chu and Han Chunqiu" (Chu-Han struggle story drama), "A Prosperous World" (Cao Bin's Jiangnan story drama), "Explaining the Way and Eliminating Evil" (Hunyuan Box Story Play), "Xing Tang Foreign History" (Talking about Tang Romance Story Play), etc., each has 240 volumes, and it takes 10 days to complete the performance.

The Qing court was very happy, and successively built four tall and majestic stages in the imperial city, the imperial garden, and the palace. The Deheyuan stage in the Summer Palace, and the Qingyinlou stage in the Fushouyuan in the Rehe Palace (Chengde Summer Resort).The above-mentioned four stages have a unified pattern, and they are all three-storey pavilion-style buildings. They are named Futai, Lutai, and Shoutai from top to bottom, and characters can appear on them at the same time.Shoutai is the main performance area with the largest area. There are three patios on the ceiling and five wells under the floor.There is a potter's wheel frame at the mouth of the patio, and a built-in winch in the ground well, which can be used to raise and lower actors and props. It is suitable for performing mythological dramas with gods, gods, immortals, Buddhas, living people, and ghosts.

Most of the court dramas in the Qing Dynasty were huge novels, with many characters, lively plots, and sometimes wonderful episodes.But on the whole, the thinking is mediocre, the royal color is strong, and there are many dross, which is annoying.With the royal family as the political backing and economic backing, the court performances are gorgeously dressed, with exquisite scenery and magnificent scenes, which are far beyond the comparison of folk troupes.Regardless of the repertoire, tunes, facial makeup, costumes, props, acting skills, singing, music, etc., they have all developed compared to before, and have had a certain impact on later generations of opera.However, due to boasting about wealth and fighting for strangeness, they are far away from the freehand spirit of opera, which leads to the failure of the performance.A variety of realistic and structured backgrounds bring the audience into a colorful and colorful world, obliterate the singing, reading, acting, and fighting of the actors, weaken the characterization, and hinder the healthy development of performing arts.

The so-called "Heyday of Kangxi and Qianlong" did not last long. In the first year of Jiaqing (1796 A.D.), a large-scale uprising of the White Lotus Sect broke out in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Chu.In the climate of intensified contradictions and crises, court dramas shrank sharply, and theater organizations were also reduced accordingly.In the seventh year of Daoguang (1821 A.D.), Nanfu was downgraded to the Shengping Department, and all "foreign schools" in Jingshan returned to their original places. Only eunuchs practicing art in the palace performed routine small-scale drama performances.

However, during the Xianfeng period, Emperor Xianfeng was addicted to skin yellow, and the concubines and concubines of the Manchu Dynasty were all fans of the theater.Especially after becoming the Empress Dowager, Cixi, who monopolized the government, was even more addicted to drama.In March of the third year of Xianfeng (1860 A.D.), the practice of selecting ethnic students was resumed.On the one hand, outstanding actors from various opera troupes were selected to teach eunuchs in the palace, and they were called "teachers";From Jiawu (the 20th year of Guangxu, 1894 A.D.) to Gengzi (26th year of Guangxu, 1900 A.D.), most of the famous folk actors in the capital became enshrined in the palace, such as Cheng Changgeng and Tan Xinpei, the famous actors of Pihuang, Guo Baochen and Hou Junshan, the famous actors of Bangzi, etc. , were selected to perform in the palace, and were rewarded by the queen mother and the emperor.Empress Dowager Cixi disregarded the rise and fall of the country, and only wanted to enjoy sensuality, which made the palace drama abnormally prosperous.The morbid prosperity of court dramas in this period had both negative factors and positive effects. It objectively promoted the improvement and development of Pihuang Opera, making it perfect day by day, becoming the "national opera", replacing Kunqu Opera, and becoming the leader of the theater circle.

The development of opera art is related to the change of dynasties in the world, but not completely corresponding, but has its relative independence and continuity.In fact, after the Opium War in 1840, when Peking Opera art flourished and flourished, along with the rise of the bourgeois reform movement, opera reform also began.The improvement of opera can be roughly divided into three stages, that is, the first stage from around 1898 to 1905, the second stage from 1905 to 1911, and the third stage after the failure of the Revolution of 1911.The opera improvement movement marks the entry of ancient Chinese opera into a new historical period.

The Huabu local opera represented by Peking Opera has gone through several ups and downs and has continued to this day.It is a collective creation and a historical accumulation, during which the painstaking efforts of folk artists of all ages have been cast, impregnated with various thoughts, feelings and aesthetic concepts, presenting a mottled appearance.There is no lack of democratic essence in it, and it will inevitably leave the imprint of the times, including feudal dross.This situation also exists in classical repertoires such as Song Zaju, Jin Yuanben, Song Yuan Southern Opera, Yuan Zaju, and Ming and Qing Legends.For this precious and rich heritage, total negation and uncritical inheritance are one-sided.Total negation will lead to national nihilism, and uncritical inheritance is not a scientific attitude.Only by adhering to the viewpoints of Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism, and critically inheriting and developing, can we carry forward the brilliant Chinese opera art, make it our own use, and pass on to future generations.