On The Transformation Of China From Flower Drum Opera Singer Phenomenon

Hunan Flower-drum Opera is a general term for some local flower-drum operas and lantern operas in Hunan Province, which is one of the most influencial local operas in China. According to the historical records, Hunan Flower-drum Opera has a history more than two hundred years. In about the 18th century, there appeared the initial form of flower-drum opera. It consists of Changsha Flower-drum Opera,Changde Flower-drumOpera,Yueyang Flower-drum Opera,Hengyang Flower-drum Opera and Shaoyang Flower-drum Opera, Lingling Flower-drum Opera (popular in Qiyang, Lingling and Huagudeng in South Hunan), and Changsha Flower-drum Opera is a typical representative. In the middle of 19th century, the temporary opera classes turned to half major opera classes and major classes. And at the same time the performance also turned from the simple to the complex. There are different opera types in the middle of Qing Dynasty.Hunan Flower-drum Opera is the most influential and unique type of local opera. Therefore, the research on it is not uncommon, mostly focusing on its formation and development, music features and the vocal characteristics of Flower Drum Opera. How we have breakthrough in the study has become a difficult problem in the research. I live in Hunan and have been influenced by the flower drum opera since my childhood. During the undergraduate and postgraduate stages of vocal learning, I often consider the performance skills. Upon graduation, I found that there is a hot phenomenon-most popular contemporary folk singers in Hunan studied flower-drum opera. When researching on this phenomenon, I tried to find out the connection between the performance skills of Hunan Flower-drum Opera and national vocal music. The time for the formation of flower-drum opera is not too long, so there are few works and articles on the performance of flower-drum opera. We hope that this research will play a positive role on national vocal music performance, and fill the blank of Hunan Flower-drum Opera performance. Furthermore, as a local Hunanese, I have the responsibility to study, succeed the performance skills of flower-drum opera, and let it become more famous by combining the national vocal music performance. Especially after learning flower-drum opera from Mrs. Liu Zhaoqian for a period of time, I am so anxious to find that her sound is attractive. I begin to think how to combine flower-drum opera with folk music. And a flower-drum opera worker should learn from flower-drum opera as well as folk music. From the phenomenon of folk singers influenced by flower-drum operas, I find that there are many singers from Hunan, and feel pride to see they are very popular with people. As a gradute majoring in folk music, I hope that my anayses on singing of Hunan singers will make many folk music lovers love it more and China's folk music will become more flourishing and splendid.In the wide sense of our national vocal music, which contains four ways of singing, flower-drum opera surely belongs to it. In the narrow sense, it refers to the national way of singing, that is the national accademic vocal music, which is a way of singing on the basis of folk music, learning from bel canto, through a lot of practiceand summary. The point of view of this article, from the angle of the narrow sense, focuses on the individual analyses of the success of folk song singers influenced by flower-drum operas in Hunan Province such as Mrs. Li Guyi, Mrs. Zhang Ye, Mrs. Lei Jia and Mrs. Wang Lida. According to this and combining with my own experience of studying the national vocal music for years, I will inquire the reference between the flower-drum opera and the national vocal music and the importance of inheriting traditional folk operas.In this article I used approaches of field investigation, material collection,comparison and comprehensive analysis,and field investigation is the most important approach in this article. I have contacted the teachers in Hunan Flower-drum Opera Group, learnt the flower-drum opera and its ways of singing by myself, serioulsy collected revelant materials in detail, (including therotical materials, voical materials and collections of tunes of operas), as well as analyses, comparison and research on the ways of folk music and flower-drum opera singing.This article consists of three parts. The first part is a introduction to the features of flower-drum opera, especially the features of singing. The second part is some individual analyses on the phenomenon of folk singers influenced by flower-drum operas. The third part is the importance of flower-drum operas, or even operas, drama and folk music on the development of folk vocal music.