*Cantonese Han Opera

52.*Cantonese Han Opera

Nominating Unit: Cantonese Han Opera Academy

Originally called “Play from across the River”, Han Opera’s main melody can be classified into two groups: “Xipi” and “Erhuang”. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, Han Opera entered East Guangdong Province and developed with City of Chaozhou as its center. Later the locals form a fondness for the play. At the same time, the opera spreads its influence further north of Chaozhou to Hakka ethnic minority. Now Han Opera is mainly located in City of Meizhou and is popular in Chaoshan Area, Heyuan, Shenzhen, Huizhou, Shaoguan, South Jiangxi Province and West Fujian Province, etc.

Han Opera has a rich repertoire of 872 in more than 328 scriptures, most of which are Wenhsi with one-act drama making up 80% of the total. Its themes come from ancient historical stories, mythologies, legendaries, romances and miscellaneous dramas in the Yuan Dynasty. Its representative plays include Grand Preceptor Wen, Visit Talents at Wei River, Murder Emperor of Qi, Militarist Sun Bin Accepts Pang Juan as Apprentice, Cross Shao Pass, Emperor of Qi Cries at the Palace, Bai Lixi Recognizes his Wife, etc.

As aforesaid, Han Opera’s melody comes from Xipi and Erhuang, with Xipi focusing on “Yan Uprising and Ban (beat) Falling” and Erhuang on “Ban Uprising and Falling”, winning them the nicknames of “Fast Xipi” and “Slow Erhuang” respectively. Han Opera also absorbs elements of other tunes, namely Kun Opera, Chuipai, Big Beat (so called “Four Plain Tunes”), ditty, seven sentences and a half (Nanluo Tune or Luoluo Tune), Bang Tune, Geyang Tune, and Buddhist Songs, etc., winning it a special status in the Pihuang Tune System. Cantonese Han Opera incorporates and integrates essences of ancient royal court music and local ritual music to create its own characteristics. Now it has 264 stringed and woodwind music works, 39 popular works of plate, and 47 folk ditties, the type of opera with the richest accompaniment. Among them, string, gong, horn make up Han Opera’s unique musical features thanks to their outstanding tone quality.

In Han Opera, there are six main types of roles: sheng (male), dan (young female), chou (clown, male or female), gong (old male), po (old female) and jing (painted face, male). Jing is subdivided into wujing (black) and hongjing (red). Each role distinguishes itself from one another in terms of vocalization and aria. Hongjing stands out because it combines lip-sync singing and real singing to create mellow, round but resonant sound. Han Opera is performed using Zhongzhou accent, Hunan and Guangdong Province accent as well as mandarin to create a special fl avor.(https://www.daowen.com)

Honored as “Opera of Peony in South China”, Han Opera plays an important and valuable role in studying local dGoats and operas’ preservation and development, the interaction between different folk arts as well as Hakka culture’s origin and development.

In recent years, the audience of Han Opera drop dramatically due to impacts brought about by market economy and pop culture. Regular performances are not guaranteed; former troupes are either disbanded or merged; and with old masters of the opera passed away, the young generation is not interested in picking up the art. Therefore, lots of stunts are gone with old masters, rendering the Cantonese Han Opera to an imminent danger. Immediate action is needed to protect the Cantonese Han Opera.

In 2008, Han Opera was added into the list of the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage.