A Study On "Competitions Between Hua And Ya" On The Stage Of Qing Dynasty

This treatis studies the famous historical event "Competitions Between Hua and Ya" on the stage of Qing Dynasty from angles of phasing of the event, positioning of Ya (elegance) and Su (commonness), origins of Chinese operatic tune-patterns, motivations of the event, and the systematic transitions caused by the event.ChapterⅠgeneralizes the several competitions between Hua and Ya, divides the developing phases and outlines the basic outlook of the Ming and Qing theatre. Hua and Ya is a pair of important concepts in the history of Qing theatre, which can be regarded as a history of prosperity and decline of Hua and Ya alternately. However, though "Competitions between Hua and Ya" rose in the mid-Qing Dynasty, they sprouted since the Late Ming Dynasty which witnesses the whole process a long-term historical one. This treatise partitions "Competitions Between Hua and Ya" into four stages:"prelude", "first round", "second round", and "third round", and expatiates in detail the origin and stages of the Competition, analyses the main tunes, characters, works, and related phenomena during each stage. It’s generally acknowledged that the Competitions occurred between Ya Bu (the elegant theatre represented by Kun opera) and Hua Bu (the common theatre composed by dozens of local opera genres), while this treatise holds that "Competitions Between Hua and Ya" actually were not only the competitions between Hua and Ya, but also contention between Hua and Hua, and even included interaction and mutual infiltration between all the operas at the time.ChapterⅡtraces how the concepts of Ya (elegance) and Su (commonness) evolved in the history of ancient Chinese culture, and points out that the essence of "Competitions Between Hua and Ya "is" Competitions Between Ya and Su". Meanwhile, this paper puts Kun opera, one of the Nanqu (southern opera) tunes, in a historical dynamic developing process, with which its Ya or Su qualities have been changed all the time. In addition, as representative operatic tunes of Hua Bu and Ya Bu, Kun opera and Yiyang opera contain both Ya and Su elements. The division of Hua and Ya means to a general condition, not considering the possible changing of cultural characters with time flies by. Finally, the definitions of Hua and Ya have always had different standards. This article argues, basing on materials of the Qing imperial theatrical activities and the civilian performances, that "Competition Between Hua and Ya" refer to rivalship between operatic tunes.ChapterⅢexplores several important operatic tunes of Hua Bu (local operas). The rise of Hua Bu was associated with the transition of aesthetic trend of the times, while the traditional Chinese music forms began to influx together and reach their crest. The local operas of Hua Bu, having sprang from the broad masses of the people, absorbed many advantageous elements from traditional Qupai Ti (a musical style featured by applying Qu Pai, the names of tunes to which a piece of Qu music is composed) Qu Yi (or Shuo Chang, which means speaking and singing, specifically refers to Chinese folk art forms including ballad singing, story telling, comic dialogues, clapper talks, etc.), folk music, court music and religious music, and shown up distinctly to be tune-centered and text-marginalized. The distribution and spreading of Hua Bu tunes are problems that all the opera history publications try to clarify. This Chapter researches on some controversial topics of Hua Bu Yiyang opera and Bangzi opera.ChapterⅣfocuses on the historical and cultural backgrounds of "Competitions Between Hua and Ya " and analyses in depth the causes of the unique theatric phenomenon. It’s generally believed that the Competitions occurred primarily due to Ya Bu Kun opera’s self-confinement and self-admiration on formal causes which insulated it from the people’s aesthetic habits, and also the systematic weaknesses of Chuanqi (a literatural style typically applied to Kun opera) made it fail to revive after it was replaced by the Hua Bu local operas. These opinions expose part of the truth, however, there is still a big bias. In the Qing Dynasty, unprecedented variations took place in China’s social, economic, ideological and cultural fields, and the resulting changes of the people’s aesthetic psychology directly affected the prosperity and decline of Hua Bu and Ya Bu. Since the mid-Qing Dynasty, traditional Chinese music reached its age of maturity, folk literature and Shuo Chang arts were highly-developed, while the literature and theatric art of Hua Bu operas possessed their unique superiorities——when all those aforesaid factors got together, it is inevitably for the Hua Bu local operas to rise rapidly. Among performing forms of civil theatre performing, inner court performing, private troupe performing and Tang Hui (opera troupe or performer invited to private residence to perform)performing, the inner court style and Tang Hui used to dominant the developing situation of Hua Bu and Ya Bu. After Hua Bu kept pace of Ya Bu in the mid-Qing Dynasty, the civil theatre performing played a leading role in the theatric circle. The changes of folk fashion helped to accelerate recession of Kun opera, so that the court performing, private troupes and Tang Hui had to accept the coexistence of Kun opera and Hua Bu local operas, even a whole-local-opera performing situation.Chapter V discusses the dialectical relationship between "Competitions Between Hua and Ya " and the traditional Chinese opera systems. As a turning point with far-reaching significance in the history of Chinese theatre, the Competition is not an independent historical phenomenon, which is mainly reflected from the historical changes of the opera system. These changes contain two layers of content:Firstly, the musical structure. This section will emphasize on aesthetic merits of the Banqiang Ti (the musical structure of neoteric Chinese opera, featured by changing the whole effect of a piece of music through tempo, speed and dynamics instead of traditional restrictive Qupai) operatic music as well as the gain and loss of the traditional operatic music system. The traditional Chinese opera is a complicated diachronic system consisted by ancient operas (including Qupai-structured Nanxi, Yuan Zaju, Kun opera and Yiyang opera,etc.), neoteric operas (including Banqiang-structured Qin opera and Beijing opera,etc.) and modern operas (including operas whose musical styles have not been fixed, eg. Shaoxing opera, Huangmei opera,etc.) The Competitions accomplished the transformation of operatic music from Qupai Ti structure to Banqiang Ti, which marked the operatic music obtained a higher degree of freedom relative to the text and was able to lead traditional Chinese operas to a modern way. Secondly, the textural structure. Music of traditional Chinese operas is closely attached to texts, so the changes of music structure will inevitably bring about liberation of the textural system. From the angles of narrative form and structuring scheme, Hua Bu local operas are more inclined to flexible Qiyan (a kind of classical poetic structure featuring each line containing characters of the same number) antithetic sentence patterns, instead of the traditional Qupai Ti lyrics. This section explains how these changes took place after the Hua Bu local operas rose through specific texts.