The Study Of Lao She’s Peking Opera Repertoires’ Adaptation During The Traditional Opera Reform In The 1950s And 1960s

Around the establishment of People’s Republic of China,the traditional opera reform carried out step by step under the domination of government.The traditional opera,as an art form generated in folk life,includes aesthetic representation and ethics popular among mass in hundreds of years.Lao She became an official participant of traditional opera reform after 1949 quickly because of his creation experience and traditional opera accumulation.He was a special one in the reform for his double identity of traditional opera amateur and official propagandist of new ideology.The dissertation wants to investigate how Lao She analyzed,chose and transformed the folk culture resources deposited in traditional opera in his Peking Opera repertoires’ adaptation when he tried to meet the requirements of mainstream ideology.How would he deal with the relationships between mainstream ideology and folk culture resources? Through the study of his practice,we want to learn the complicated state of writer in the integration trend of reform and acquire some illumination about Chinese literature and art transformation after 1949.The dissertation investigates three repertoires’ adaptation of Lao She through the methods of document analysis,close reading and case study.By reading the journals on traditional opera published in 1950 s and 1960 s,the dissertation tries to know more about the historical context of the traditional opera reform.The dissertation comprises 5 parts.The first part,as an introduction,explains the value of the subject and reviews the relevant studies.In Chapter 1,the author describes the process of Lao She’s entering into the traditional opera reform and presents his awkward state resulting from his double identity.In Chapter 2,the author takes a case study centering on the adaptation of Shi Wu Guan by Lao She in 1956.In the relatively free environment of 1956,Lao She tried to let mainstream ideology and folk aesthetic taste coexist.In Chapter 3,the author takes a case study centering on the adaptation of Qing Xia Dan Xue by Lao She in 1959.In this case,mainstream ideology and folk ethics forms correlative relation.In Chapter 4,the author takes a case study centering on the adaptation of Wang Bao Chuan by Lao She in 1963.In the increasingly radical environment of the traditional opera reform,Lao She gave greater consideration towards the mainstream ideology through replacing part of the folk ethics in original work with political ethics and changing the folk aesthetic taste of mass.In the Conclusion,the author summarizes three case studies and points out the consultation practice during Lao She’s participating in constructing “literature and art of people”.Also,we will acquire experience and reflection from Lao She’s trial of answering the problems arising in the traditional opera reform.