An Archaeological Survey On The Song-Yuan Opera

The classic opera in China has a long history, and is one of the gems of the Chinese cultural art. The Song-Yuan period is a time when classic Chinese operatic art formed and developed. Song Zajufpoetic drama), Drama Script of the Jin dynasty and South Drama were the original forms of Chinese Classic Opera, and later they were developed into Yuan Zaju known to have flourished in the Yuan Dynasty. With the publication of A Survey on Song-Yuan Opera by Wang Guowei ushering a new stage concerning the study of Song-Yuan opera, the historical circle of Chinese classic opera worked industriously on this soil and made outstanding achievements one after another. However, through the comprehensive survey of the research done on the Song-Yuan opera, the most obvious problem is the lack of historical materials. For example, as to the historical material on Song Opera, the scripts of Zaju(poetic drama) and Drama Script did not pass down, and only a small amount of operatic material frequently quoted by scholars from Dongjing Menghua Lu (Record of Life in Dongjing) by Meng Yuanlao, Ducheng Jishi (Record of Famous Spots in the Capital) by Nai Deweng and Wulin Jiushi (Anecdotes from Wuliri) by Zhou Mi are kept, which leads to the fact that the study of Song-Yuan Opera in the first half of the 20th century could not surpass the level achieved by Wang Guowei in his A Survey on Song-Yuan Opera, showing that the progress on the study of the history of Song-Yuan Opera cannot be made unless new materials are found.From 1950s, large amounts of archaeological and excavating work coordinating the basic construction have been done, and many valuable cultural relics are unearthed, including a large number of operatic relics of the Song-Yuan period. Those operatic relics of Song-Yuan Period contain stage, stage model, operatic figure, painting, frescoes and inscriptions on the stone, and so on. The particular historical value of those operatic relics is very important to the study of Song-Yuan Opera which lacks historical materials. On the basis of the study by previous scholars, this paper, by using the archaeological material as a major tool combined with material of documents, attempts to explore the academic problems related to Song-Yuan Opera. Itis divided into three parts: Part One briefly surveys the rise and development of the Song-Yuan operatic archaeology; Part Two first discusses the concept "Operatic Relics" and its classification, and later presents the main findings of operatic relics in the Song-Yuan period; Part Three, based on Part Two, makes a tentative study on the operatic types, performance structure, role, band and musical instruments, and stage of Song-Yuan Opera from the angle of archaeology. The third part is the core of this dissertation.According to documentary record and operatic relics, Song-Yuan Opera can be classified into three types: (\)Zaju(poetic drama) with more comic elements and stressing soliloquy; (T)Zaju(poetic drama) stressing singing and dancing; and (3)Zaju(poetic drama) stressing the acting of the story. The first and second type the opera had already appeared in the North Song Dynasty, and became popular in the Song-Jin period. In the tombs of Song-Jin period in Shanxi, Henan, Sichuan, etc., operatic relics related to them have been unearthed. The third came into being between the later years of the North Song Dynasty and the middle period of the Jin Dynasty, and developed into the North Zaju since the Yuan Dynasty, which is characterized by the complication of the roles of the actors, performances with complicated plot instead of the previous making of gags by Fujing and Fumo, the universal existence of the accompanying band and the fixed stage for performance.As to the performance structure, the operatic carving unearthed from the grave in the Song Dynasty in Yanshi, Henan Province, etc., manifests a Song Zo/'w's performance structure with one scene and two sections. The operatic relics in the Song-Yuan period show that two-actor Zheng Zaju disappeared and the four-actor or fi...