At that time, Huiban went to Beijing to take root, which was in line with the right time, place and people, and also respected others. 1790, the Qin opera, which once flourished in Beijing, was banned by the Qing court for five years. "China people like to listen to new voices." When Wu Lana, governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, came to Beijing with the famous Anqing Hui Opera Troupe "Sanqing Class" in the south at that time to celebrate Qianlong's 80th birthday, history gave Peking Opera a golden opportunity. Peking Opera was not born independently from childhood, from simple to complex, but developed on the basis of other local operas. From the very beginning, I stood at a very high starting point, from returning to Han and using Pi and Huang. It inherits and develops the fine traditions of Anhui Opera, Han Opera and Kunqu Opera, and constantly absorbs excellent plays, music and performing arts of Bangzi, Gaoqiang and even various local operas, enriching and developing itself. It concentrates the fine traditions of traditional Chinese opera art, integrates them into one and uses them comprehensively. It quickly became a hit in Beijing and then became a trend.
As we all know, Kunqu opera was once the first kind of "national drama" in Chinese history. It has ruled for hundreds of years, and its artistic value has been evaluated for a long time, but the artistic level of Peking Opera that rose later surpassed it. Beijing opera not only inherits the essence of Kunqu opera, but also greatly expands its artistic expression. The "water mill cavity" of Kunqu opera is too gentle and charming, and its delicate and euphemistic characteristics limit the expression of that kind of high-pitched and passionate content. Peking Opera has absorbed many factors from northern operas, and can express that kind of bold and vigorous emotion to the fullest. Beijing opera combines rigidity with softness, which is easy to express the infinite field of human life and emotion, and it also surpasses other operas in this respect. Kunqu Opera takes Qu Di as an excuse, which is both laborious and euphemistic. However, after Beijing opera was changed to Beijing-Hu Tuoqiang, the expressive force of timbre was greatly increased.
Some people despise a lot of percussion music in Beijing opera and regard it as noise. In fact, percussion music in Beijing opera is for the needs of performance (for example, Beijing opera has many martial arts elements and so on). ), and no amount of percussion music can be a reason for the backwardness of music. No matter how amazing the artistic effect of African drum music is, it is in the hands of modern western musicians such as Bartok, Stravinsky and Mei Xian. That kind of percussion music became the protagonist of many of their important music works, while strings were relegated to a secondary position and even used. Some people think that the stylized features of Beijing opera singing and qupai lack artistic value. In fact, stylization does not prevent the performance from being handled flexibly as needed. There are many so-called "dominant motives" in Wagner's musicals (every important person, event and thing is represented by a fixed melody short film), and the most touching music in his works is often skillfully interwoven by several "dominant motives".
In fact, appreciating Beijing opera is just like appreciating western classical music. At first, I was not used to it. But as long as you put aside your prejudices and listen more, the rich artistic enjoyment it gives you back is indescribable.