From Jinyu Nu Xun Huisheng Musical Performances Aesthetic Features

Xun Huisheng was noted as one of the four greatest Dan Actors. His elaborate performing style was entitled Xun Style of Beijing opera. Instead of following other actors' suit, he revolutionized the style of opera performance by means of a thorough understanding of characters and plots, which resulted in the lively portrait of rebellious heroines. Xun spared no effort to integrate the scenes of people's daily life into performances, avoiding the stereotypical presentation of characters, which swam with the tide of the opera performance since the twentieth century. He relentlessly pursued the intimate spiritual interactions between actors and audiences. His impeccable innovation and expert adherence to the traditional rules of the opera performance earned him nationwide reputation.This thesis probes into the musical aesthetics of Xun Huisheng's performance in "Jin Yu Nu" through various perspectives. In the view of musical aesthetics, ethno musicology and musical morphology, this paper analyzes the musical aesthetic features exclusively revealed in Xun's singing, which includes three aspects: the musical accompaniments, historical background and the overall style of Xun Huisheng's performance.This paper represents the musical aesthetic features in Xun Huisheng's performance from three aspects. First, in the view of historical background, previous researches on this renowned actor's performance mainly focused on the description of his activities without a clear-cut distinction between different phases of his performance life. This thesis divided his life into four periods: initial period, writing period, mature period and last period. Second, in the view of musical morphology, this paper presents graphic analyses of the structure of music and the structure of performance in "Jin Yu Nu", aiming at facilitating the analysis of morphological features in his singing. Third, in the view of musical aesthetics, this paper focuses on the charm (the charm in the unity of oppositeness and the charm in appropriateness) and vividness (the vividness in elegant symbols and the vividness in fresh stage sets) of Xun's performance.