A Study About The Singing And Performing Style Of Master Chang Xiangyu Summary

Yu Opera is a form of opera derived from the folk music named "Bangzi". It was very popular throughout the country in its first two hundred years. Two main schools and five famous singers established their respectful positions during that period. Among these famous singers, Master Chang Xiangyu is the most shining star with the unique style of her school, which is called "Chang School". Her contribution in Yu Opera is of big value for us to study and summarize. Most existing studies about Master CHANG are mainly focused in her personal growth and development, or in her continuous pursuit of excellence in Yu Opera. Very limited studies have been made in the style of her singing and performing. The author believes that, comprehensive studies of an opera singer should also include her movement, her facial expression, and the expression in her eyes, which are as same important as singing. Only in this way, we can understand how she built the image lively and vividly on the stage. On the basis of previous studies about Master Chang, and with the representative art work of "Hua Mulan" by her, the author applied statistics to sort out and categorize the forms of script structure (including story, main characters, conflicts, and music style) as well as the forms of audio structure (including rhythm, drama sound, plate number, sentence, phrasing structure and lyrics); the author also applied morphology of music in the analysis of materials such as audio&video records, and music scores. The characters of Master Chang’s singing and performing styles on the stage are summarized in this article.