Huangmei opera, formerly known as Huangmei tune, Huangmei cavity, Huangmei tea opera, Huangmei tea song, etc., is also called tea opera, caizi, Xiahe tune and other names in Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui. Before the formation of the 36 great operas in the late Qing Dynasty, Huangmei Opera, as a type of opera, was in a state of gradual development from gestation, germination to formation, and there was no clear written and historical record. However, in the poems of some literati in the Qing Dynasty, there are occasional references to the origin of Huangmei Opera, which are worthy of our cherishing and study.
In the 31st year of Qianlong (1766), Chen Fengzi (1726-1799) composed a group of poems "Xunyang Music" thirteen poems (see "Dunzhuotang Poems"), which described the folk customs of Xunyang on a monthly basis. Pity the daughter port, all the way to pick tea songs. Xunyang, known as Xunyang in ancient times, has jurisdiction over the border of Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui such as Huangmei County, Hubei Province, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, etc. Chen Fengzi is a native of Dehua, Jiangxi. After Dehua, it was renamed Jiujiang County, and its jurisdiction was the lower half of Huangmei County, Hubei Province and today's Jiujiang County, Jiangxi Province. It can be said that this "Xunyang Music" depicts the cheerful life of the Huangmei people and Jiujiang people in the Qing Dynasty playing dragon lanterns and singing tea songs during the Lantern Festival. Tea picking songs are not exclusive to a certain county or place, but at the junction of Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, the style of tea picking songs is particularly prevalent, which has laid a very good foundation for the formation, development and spread of Huangmei Opera. Judging from Chen Fengzi's "Tea Picking Song All the Way", the tea picking song at this time may not be a high-stage drama, but mainly an impromptu song and dance by the locals. Or at this time, Huangmei Opera has been born, and there are also big operas, but as an ordinary person, it can only be displayed in the form of song and dance, which shows that Huangmei Opera is a kind of people-friendly, popular, and energetic new type of opera. In the 58th year of Qianlong (1793), Chen Wenrui's "Nan'an Bamboo Branches" corroborated this, and its words said: "The long day is a three-legged play, and the tea song is picked to try the tea day." In terms of the development stage of the origin and formation of Huangmei Opera, it is generally believed to be divided into four stages: one-man opera, "two small and three small", "three dozen and seven singing", and orchestral singing. The "three-legged opera" mentioned in "Nan'an Bamboo Branches" refers to "two small and three small", which shows that Huangmei opera was still in its infancy during the Qianlong period.
Huangmei Tea, the predecessor of Huangmei Opera, was originally a kind of folk song and dance, and Shi Bailin and Lu Hongfei put forward this earlier. Shi Bailin said: "In the past, in the rural areas of Huangmei County, after the Spring Festival, there were always some literate people who loved literature and art, and bought some woodcut singing books such as "Liang Shanbo Descending the Mountain" and "Meng Jiangnu" from the towns and towns, and sang for self-entertainment and humanity in the village. When singing, there is no musical accompaniment, holding a record book, singing while watching, and the tune sung is called "Huangmei Song". This kind of scene is exactly what is said to be "tea picking songs all the way", which is an embryonic state of development from tea picking songs and dances to one-man shows.
In the ninth year of Daoguang (1829), Bei Jilin, a native of Tianmen, Hubei Province, wrote "Huangmei Bamboo Branch Words" when he was a school official in Huangmei, Hubei: "There are many rice plants under the cloudy mountain, and the fish in Taibai Lake are waves. Meet this year's owner, and the villages sing tea picking songs. The author's own note: "Yi likes to pick the recent events of this county, and sings tea picking with his words." (See the manuscript of the Collected Poems of the Flower Water Pavilion). The cloudy mountains and Taibai Lake mentioned in this bamboo branch poem are all the place names of Huangmei, which writes the cheerful life of Huangmei farmers who enjoyed a bumper harvest at that time and sang tea picking songs in every village. Its self-note "Yi Xi Cai the recent affairs of the county, with its words to sing and pick tea" is more valuable as a historical material, indicating that in the early years of Daoguang, the Huangmei drama script written according to Huangmei's people and events has appeared, and the development of Huangmei Opera has entered the stage of "three dozen and seven singing", marking a major development of Huangmei Opera. We can see from the repertoire of 36 major plays and 72 small plays of Huangmei Opera that were jointly circulated in Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui that the classic scripts "Qu Xuefu Sues the Dam Fee" and "Escaping the Water Famine" are the real people and real things in Huangmei County during the Qianlong period, and they have appeared from the end of Qianlong to the beginning of Daoguang. If the appearance of classic scripts marks the formation of the genre, then Huangmei Opera has been officially born in the Qianjia period. In the traditional classic repertoire of Huangmei Opera, "Zhang Chaozong's Confession to the Inheritance", "Song Guangyou Fights the Grain House", "Zhang Dehe" and so on are all real people and true stories of Huangmei, and these classic scripts have been widely spread in the late Qing Dynasty since Daoguang. In the first year, as Shi Bailin and other scholars said, "the tea picking opera in Huangmei County and the Huangmei opera in Anhui, although the names are different, the traditional repertoire of '36 big operas and 72 small operas' is basically the same", indicating that Huangmei opera as a drama has been fully formed before the late Qing Dynasty.
Huangmei Opera has been widely spread in Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui in the stage of one-man show and "two small and three small" (triangle class). In the more than 100 years from Qianlong to Xianfeng, successive generations of Huangmei opera performers continued to sing Huangmei opera, so that it won the reputation of "Huangmei tune" and "Huangmei tone". Just like the first year of governance, He Yuanbing, a person from Leping, Jiangxi, said in the sixth song of "Tea Picking Song": "Choose the green window of new tea, and the tune of the river is unparalleled." How not to sing Jiangnan songs, all make Huangmei County dialect. He Yuanbing's "Tea Picking Song" is a bamboo branch poem, which is a poem with a strong folk song color, mainly to record folk customs. He Yuanbing's "Tea Picking Song" records the life of the people during the Qingming and Guyu seasons, including daily activities such as sheng songs, flute and drums, mulberry picking, tea picking, and silkworm raising. The sixth song reflects that when the locals are picking tea, they do not sing the local Jiangnan song of Jiangxi, but sing the Huangmei dialect. From the perspective of Zhuzhici recording the social customs of a place, this is by no means an accidental event, but a true reproduction of the grand occasion of the local singing of Huangmei dialect, so that it completely overwhelms the local Jiangnan song.
Huangmei opera has been widely popular in Anhui and Jiangxi during the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, and has also been confirmed by the written records in newspapers from the late Qing Dynasty to the ** period. On August 29, 1879, the fifth year of Guangxu (1879), the "Huangmei Lewd Play" on the "Declaration" said: "Outside the Beiguan of Anhui Province, there are people who sing Huangmei tunes every year, and there are more than 20 people in a class, and there is no novelty enough to move people's ears. There are always one or two small plays after the play, and Hua Dan and clowns perform all kinds of ugliness, which is not much different from the flower drum play in Jiang Province. The "Flower Drum Opera of Jiang Province" mentioned here should be the Huangmei tune introduced to Jiangxi, which is "not very different". This shows that at the latest from the early years of Tongzhi to the early years of Guangxu, Hubei's Huangmei tune has been prevalent in Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, and the actual initial introduction time must be as early as the Daoguang to Xianfeng period, or even the Qianlong period. Because as a foreign Huangmei tune, it is difficult for it to flourish in the Tongzhi period without decades of competition with local opera.
*Scholar Shao Kang published a long article "Huangmei Tune" in the "Declaration" on November 18, 1934, which clearly pointed out at the beginning that "Huangmei Tune" originated in Huangmei, Hubei Province, and spread to the outside world "centered on Huangmei". It is worth noting that the article points out that "immigrants from Anhui during the Hongyang era were also brought over by the 'Huangmei Tune' in Yuqian, Zhejiang." This shows that Huangmei Opera was introduced to Anqing from Huangmei in Hubei Province, no later than the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, which was about 20 years earlier than Cai Zhongxian (1865-1942), who was known as the ancestor and originator of Huangmei Opera in Anhui Province, to the early years of Guangxu when Huangmei Opera in Hubei Province learned to sing Huangmei Opera.
The reason why Huangmei Opera can be popular in Huanggang in Hubei, Anqing in Anhui and Jiujiang and Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province at the junction of Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces has a lot to do with their cultural roots, similar folk customs and similar accents. The rich folk culture common to the three provinces nourishes Huangmei Opera, and after the formation of Huangmei Opera, a number of art schools have been formed in the first year, among which the Hui School is the most prosperous and prosperous. The Huipai Huangmei Opera was once also known as Huai Yan in the local area, and there were even jokes called "Anhui Opera". In fact, according to the memories of Ding Yongquan, an old actor in the late Qing Dynasty who was the first to nominate "Anhui Opera", "Anhui Opera" is not the name of Huangmei Opera, but just a protective coat for him to "take off the shell of the golden cicada" and sing Huangmei Opera. In 1926, Ding Yongquan led the troupe to perform in Anqing City for the first time, and was arrested by the military and police on the grounds of singing "Huangmei Obscene Opera". The name of "Anhui Opera" is an episode in the history of Huangmei Opera, showing the hardships and humiliations of old artists singing Huangmei Opera. In the 50s of the 20th century, the Hui school of Huangmei Opera was further developed, pushing the Huangmei Opera to its heyday, so that it became the largest opera in Anhui Province.
This article was first published in China Culture Daily on January 9, 2024, page 8).
Editor-in-charge: Gou Xiaoqing.