The Spring Festival is the most important folk festival of the Chinese nation, in this festival to worship the ancestors and gods, observe the New Year, drink alcohol to feast, visit relatives and friends, these traditional customs that have been passed down to this day also carry people's beautiful vision of life. In the era when there was no Internet, no movies, no television and the "Spring Festival Gala", watching the drama in the New Year was a happy time worth remembering for many people.
"Qingyin Pavilion Acting Map", hidden in the Palace Museum. The performance was organized by Qianlong to celebrate the pacification of Taiwan's Lin Keshuang Uprising.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, watching drama during the Spring Festival was a good spiritual feast. At that time, there were no modern lighting sets in the theater, but those who were keen on this way could taste the real taste of the play when they closed their eyes and listened to the play. As stated in the "Peiping Chronicle": "Kyoto Theater opens on New Year's Day. On that day, each pear garden appeared in the xuan altar, presenting the four words of the golden book 'Opening of the Market' as a congratulation, and each museum was proud to be the first. Chinese New Year's Eve midnight, that is, a light is waiting. "Watching a play on the first day of the Chinese New Year seems to have become a common practice.
●Spring Festival acting is exquisite●
The opera industry is also known as the pear garden world, it once had a strict organization and rules, in ancient times, opera is not simply entertainment, but also court etiquette, some plays have a certain religious content, many sacrifice activities have opera on stage, called "reward god", the performance of the play is called "reward god play". In addition to "rewarding the gods", opera also has an indoctrinating role, and what is performed pays attention to the time and order, and cannot be created. The drama performed during the Spring Festival has formed a pattern, and the drama class cannot be changed arbitrarily.
The Palace Museum collects old stills of "Yangpingguan", Tan Xinpei as Huang Zhong (right), Yang Xiaolou as Zhao Yun (left)
In the past, the drama class had the custom of "sealing the box" on the 23rd day of the Waxing Moon, and after the "sealing of the box", the first day of the New Year could be inked. However, before and after the "sealing of the box", the opera circle should carry out one or two major activities to show the unity and mutual assistance of the pear garden community. For example, before the Spring Festival in 1929, the "Peking Pear Garden Whole Class String" was a major event in the history of Beijing opera. The so-called "will string" has the same meaning as "anti-string". According to the book "Centennial Spring Festival": "The Peiping Pear Garden will have a series of acts every year, and the ticket funds obtained are completely for the relief of poor colleagues." ”
This kind of "stringing act" is an important charity activity in the pear garden industry, so it is very casual and lively in the repertoire, and most of them are popular plays. During the Spring Festival, each troupe should make a lot of efforts to innovate the old, and the drama code should have an auspicious and festive meaning, which is in line with the atmosphere of the New Year. Some weekday plays should be "renamed and surnamed" to highlight auspiciousness, festivity and joy. Like "Bean Juice" changed to "Hong Luan Xi", when bean juice was the food of poor people, it was said that bean juice was too poor at the New Year, so it was necessary to change the name of the play. "Liu Bei Zhao Qin" and "Return to Jingzhou" were changed to the joyous "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang". During the festival, people are very taboo to kill and cut a type of word, so "Fishing and Killing Family" is renamed "Qingding Zhu", and this play has little to do with Qingding Zhu. "Battle Changsha" was renamed "Guan Huang to Knife" due to the homophony of sand and killing, "Sitting on the Building to Kill Pity" was renamed "WulongYuan", "Royal Monument Pavilion" was renamed "Great Reunion", etc., all of which deliberately set off the auspicious and festive atmosphere of the program.
Drama box, Qing Guangxu. Height 70 cm, length 95 cm, width 60 cm, the Palace Museum collection
During the Spring Festival, in addition to performing dramas such as ghosts, unjust retribution, fighting, killing, and so on, which cannot highlight the festive and pleasant repertoire, "pink dramas" that are not suitable for children, such as "Horse Widow Opening a Shop" and "Little Widow On the Grave", are not performed.
●Opera on "New Year Paintings"
The Palace Museum has a collection of "Horizontal Axis of Opera Figures in the Late Qing Dynasty". The painting depicts an acting accompaniment scene
In the old days, the New Year painting was an important role in the Spring Festival, in addition to the fat doll-based "Jiqing Youyu", the most favored is the Opera New Year Painting, which refers to the New Year painting with the theme of expressing the content of the opera story, the characters of the opera, the performance scenes, etc. Such as "Yutang Spring", "Pick the Scooter", "Changsakapo", "Mother-in-law's Thorn Character", "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", "Mulan Joins the Army", "The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", "Cowherd Weaver Girl" and so on.
Hanging on the wall when painting the New Year in these years, the elderly will tell the content of the painting many times, and the children have listened to it and counted the "drama addiction", and at the same time, they have cultivated their opera hobbies and increased their historical common sense.
The New Year paintings with the content of the opera have made a large number of people who cannot enter the opera garden and cannot go to the church to watch the opera and listen to the drama to some extent have spiritual enjoyment and touch. Some opera "ticket friends", during the Spring Festival, not only go to the opera garden to listen to the drama and watch the play, but also borrow the "ticket play" during the annual vacation, perform on stage, and practice skills. Among the "ticket friends", some people are famous for "singing big dramas and performing big dramas" during the Spring Festival or private church meetings, and finally "go to the sea" and sing opera as a profession. Like Peking Opera masters Yan Jupeng, Xi Xiaobo, Sun Juxian, Jin Xiushan, etc. are all "ticket friends".
●Singing drama in the deep palace ●
The custom of watching and singing big dramas during the Spring Festival was vividly reflected in the Qing Palace. According to the scholar Wang Zhizhang, acting in the court can be traced back to at least the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and in the Qing Dynasty, it reached the peak of perfection, and there was also a special Acting Yamen Shengping Bureau.
The Palace Museum's drama atlas Zhaoguan, late Qing Dynasty, 57 cm in length and 57 cm in width. Qing Palace Old Collection
The Spring Festival singing drama in the palace is not simply entertainment, and the emperors of the dynasties before Cixi regarded watching the drama as a means of governance and a ceremony in the palace, which at least shows that he is a "true dragon heavenly son" and is not mixed with ordinary people. Therefore, there are also many procedures for watching a play, and before watching the play, you must burn incense and worship the Buddha.
There are many contents in the "Chinese New Year's Eve Undertaking" recorded in the "Qing ShengPing Zhiluo", the emperor "every time he went to the Buddhist halls everywhere to pick incense at the beginning of the day", he began to sing opera from the morning meal, "the stage routine performance of "Sheng Ping Removal Year" and "Fu Shou Ying Nian" and other auspicious plays, after the afternoon meal to perform "Jin Ting Gong Shi" and "Xi Fu TongMing", after dinner to perform "Blind Man Worship the New Year" and "Welcome the New Year as Wish" are all Spring Festival dramas with auspicious meanings. Cixi even ordered a special performance at the beginning of the New Year, Cixi is an expert in opera, she is not satisfied with just watching "Blind Man Praying to the New Year" and other undertaking plays, in addition to the eunuch drama class of the Shengping Bureau, many famous people in the capital also came to perform, and the repertoire was more abundant.
In fact, whether it is the Spring Festival or opera, we all need to find a connection point between traditional culture and modern life, on this basis, our traditional festivals can play a more important role in cultural cohesion and symbolism, and opera can truly become an indispensable part of the Spring Festival from the country to the individual, from everyone to the small family.
Watching opera performances during the Spring Festival, organizing and participating in various opera cultural activities, this series of Spring Festival opera customs is not only the aesthetic appeal of the people, but also the traditional art represented by opera, which is the cultural soil for its growth and prosperity and development in the folk, which is worth cherishing.
Source: Shanxi Drama Network
EDIT: Mingming
Review: Yan Wei
Final Judge: Wang Mei