Study On Tao Qing Opera In The Yellow River Area

Tao Qing opera is one school of Chinese traditional Opera and its development and maturation was in Qing Dynasty.Generally,the name of Tao Qing refers to all those opera varieties which have been adapted from Fork Art Tao Qing or Shadow Puppet Tao Qing and been performed with First-Person Narrators,under the influence of local drama plays,folk songs and some other art forms.As estimated,roughly twenty types of Tao Qing opera plays,like Baxian drama,Languan drama,Yugu drama,Taikang Tao Qing and Jinbei Tao Qing,could be found in different provinces or municipalities in China,such as Shandong,Anhui,Hebei,Shanxi,Shaanxi,Ninxia,Inner Mongolia,Gansu.With a long history and extremely rich connotations,Tao Qing opera is also a typical example for the integration between religious culture and Chinese Opera art.And up till now,it is still enjoying the popularity along the grand Yellow River area.Following the previous research findings,this paper aims at a more systematic study on Tao Qing opera,concerning its developmental phases,theatres and troupes organization,scripts and plays,music and dances,ect.The methodology involved both analyses on textual material and field work on some important opera plays,to avoid the tradition of researching into one single opera play or theatre.Thus a more comprehensive understanding of Tao Qing opera could be achieved within the background of national opera development.At the same time,this study would also have a generalization of the cultural characteristics and aesthetic features of Tao Qin opera in the Yellow River area,from the perspectives of Cultural Geography,Religion,Sociology and Ethnomusicology.In agreement with the eagerness for potecting Intangible Cultural Heritage,this paper seeks a better way of existence for Tao Qing opera in the Yellow River area,as well as to provide a model for the traditional opera to follow suit in their modernization process.