A Comparison-study Of Singing Kunqu Without Staging And Singing Kunqu With Staging

Kunqu Opera,qu of literati,can be historically divided into two kinds:singing arias without staging and singing arias with staging.The former refers to merely singing the qu of Kunqu opera while the latter is talking about playing the Kunqu drama.At the later period of its development,singing Kunqu without staging is mainly singing the songs concluded in the Kunqu drama,while sometimes it does refer to intonating the verses popular in the Yuan Ming and Qing dynasties.However, since singing Kunqu without staging has come into being,Kunqu amateurs has made it clear that it's fundamentally different from singing Kunqu with staging and the former is not an appendage of the latter.Singing Kunqu without staging is historically considered more important than acting Kunqu.There are two main reasons.On the first hand,the Kunqu amateurs are mainly ancient literates and politicians,who hold a much higher social status than those drama actors.On the other hand,since the ancient actors are not well educated, they cannot strictly obey the rules and forms of classical composition,making them be contemned by those literates.Therefore,singing Kunqu without staging is considered as pronunciation-clear while singing Kunqu with staging with more pronunciationerrors; singing Kunqu without staging is full of rules and forms and acting Kunqu not; singing Kunqu without staging is slow,quiet and elegant while singing Kunqu with staging compact,noisy and "vulgar".In this essay,the author not only gives a clear introduction of the theories of singing Kunqu without staging and singing Kunqu with staging,but also makes a Chinese phonetic,musicological and drama-and-opera-studies analysis and comparison of the records of famous Kunqu amateurs and actors in the neoteric and modern times.By analyzing and comparing,we may find that it's impossible for both singing Kunqu without staging and singing Kunqu with staging to be completely correct in pronunciation.The only difference lies on the standards they refer to respectively.Although they are equally affected by their living background,life experience and value-system,the Kunqu amateurs considers rhyme book as major criterion while Kunqu actors mainly learning pronunciation form their tutors.As for the aria and rhythm,singing Kunqu without staging and singing Kunqu with staging are deferent in treating the qiang ge of four tones and choosing the kou fa of singing. Becides,singing Kunqu without staging holds the same speed with less facial and body expression,while singing Kunqu with staging speed is changeable according to different dramas.They are also diverged in "temperament".Because these factors that the cross-cutting relationships between the teachers and one person across the two sectors exist in Kunqu amateurs and actors,singing Kunqu without staging and singing Kunqu with staging are not entirely antagonistic,they often affect each other or with the phenomenon of fusion..