A Study On The Classic Opera Creation Theory In Ancient China

As an important part of the Chinese Classic opera criticism, the creation theories and principles reflect the traditional thought and the spirit of the age of the theorists and the writers with rich cultural connotations. In the theorists' eyes, the playwriters are expected to be both innately gifted and well nurtured artistically, and the rules governing their work differ from those doing the novelists and prose writers. The motivations behind the opera creation were very complex and diverse. Different writers tended to have different motivations, and sometimes multiple creation intent may be found in a same work. The critics made beneficial attempts to classify the classic opera in terms of the theme. Their aesthetic value about the opera with such themes as history, ethics, love, and religion reflects the profound influence of the traditional culture on the opera creation. As for the language art in the drama creation, they probed into the relation between diction and metre, hence a very sophisticated concept of Ben-se(本色). In addition, they had a long debate about whether the drama language should be plain or elegant, i.e. the debate between Adeptness(化工) or elaborateness (画工).The theorists summarized a multi-dimensional characterization strategy , taking into account a series of factors such language, context, action, appearance, and psychology. The humanity beauty in the characters was emphasized and the integration of their form and spirit was thought highest of. Taking into full account the complicated structural elements of a classical opera and the diversity of artistic value. the critics put forward a series of opera structure theories and aesthetic principles, which aim at integrity, tact, novelty, etc, of the opera structure.