A Study Of The Four Schools Of Jin Opera

Jinju opera,also known as Shanxi Bangzi,is one of the four Bangzi genres in Shanxi,along with Puzhou Bangzi,Beilu Bangzi,Shangdang Bangzi.It is also called “Zhonglu Bangzi” or “Zhonglu opera” because it originated in the area of Taiyuan and Jinzhong in Shanxi.During its development within more than two hundred years,Jinju opera has continuously enriched its artistic connotation,and become a kind of Bangzi opera with wide distribution,many professional troupes,wide influence and high artistic level.Jinju opera has been developing into many schools of performing styles on the basis of fully retaining the artistic features of the heritage.Consequently,now it is a special representative of the Bangzi opera in Northern China.Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,Jinju opera developed rapidly and reached its peak.Masterpieces such as Fu Shan’s Trip to Beijing at the Emperor’s Invitation,Yu Chenglong and Fan Jin Passing Imperial Examination have successively been created.The development of practice cannot be separated from theoretical construction.With the attention paid by academia to opera research in recent years,the theoretical research of Jinju opera has also developed greatly and it mainly focuses on the comprehensive study of Jinju opera,the history of Jinju opera,the music and script of Jinju opera,the masters,performance of Jinju opera and so on.However,it is a pity that there is still a lack of researches on Jinju opera from its overall study of different schools,especially the synchronic and diachronic research on the four major Jinju opera schools of “Ding,Niu,Guo and Ji” has not yet formed a system.And there are few comprehensive research findings on the singing tune,performance,unique technique,representative inheritors and repertoire of each school.From the diachronic point of view,the author focuses on analyzing the origin of Jinju opera schools and its development.In the second half of the Qing dynasty,the development of Jinju opera benefited from the support of the government and the rising of Jin merchants.And many Jinju opera troupes laid the foundation for the birth of different schools of Jinju Opera at the early stage.In the period of the Republic of China,Jinju opera produced such schools as Gai School,Zhang School,Ma school of Xusheng and Qiao School of the Painted Face.After the founding of the People’s Republic of China,schools of Jinju opera blossomed into four major schools,namely the Ding School of Xusheng,the Niu School of Tsing Yi,the Guo School of Xiaosheng and the Ji School of Xiaodan.In addition,a large number of performing artists emerged and affected the development of Jinju opera for decades.The representative figures of the four major schools----“Ding,Niu,Guo,Ji” and their artistic characteristics are the core of the contemporary study of Jinju Opera Schools.Taking the singing tune of different schools as the center,combined with their typical artistic expression forms of spoken parts,plate-type,performance and unique techniques,this paper studies the unique features of different schools of art by using the method of case analysis.As a result,the artistic characteristics of the four major schools can be summarized as “the top Ding School of Xusheng,the Niu School with implicit but charming performing style,the skillful Guo School,the tactful and smooth Ji School”.At the same time,it is of great importance to clarify the relationship between inheritors and schools,and to construct and analyze the history of innovation and inheritance in the schools.Finally,due to the artistic views and ideas of inheritance of four major schools,Ding Guoxian,Niu Guiying,Guo Fengying,Ji Meilian and other artists of the older generation condensed “art” and “moral integrity” into a unique style of Jinju opera schools.Examined from the social and cultural background of school-forming and the present situation of the Jinju opera schools,under the context of inheriting tradition and modern innovation,Jinju opera is facing an inevitable problem-a lack of consciousness about schools in the course of the development due to the influence of the changes among the creation mechanism,performance mechanism and market mechanism.The reflection on the opera talent education shows that the contradiction between the “large class teaching” of professional opera colleges and the inheritance and development of opera schools has led to the phenomenon of “shrinking” of talents in the Jinju opera troupes.These problems can only be solved by a series of paths to break through the reality of the opera for better development in the new era under the conditions of understanding the spirit of inheritance and the spirit of the times in the opera schools,and observing the connection between the excellent traditional Chinese culture and the advanced socialist culture.