Who is the best person in Xuancheng, the legendary tax bill holder?

Guichi Mulian Opera: Singing for a long time and shaking for a long time ...

For Mulian Opera, many people feel strange and mysterious. Most people only know that there were troupe performances in Dongzhi and Shitai ancient times through the introduction of the media. But when it comes to Guichi, people generally think it is the hometown of Nuo opera, but they don't know that there are traces of Mulian opera in Nanshan Township, southeast of Guichi. Not long ago, a wonderful performance of Mulian Opera was held in Taiping Village, Mei Jie Town.

A long history.

Professor He Genhai, an expert in folk culture, believes that the reason why Guichi Folk Mulian Opera is widely circulated and passed down for three or four hundred years is closely related to the unique cultural background here.

Guichi is close to Jiuhua Mountain, a Buddhist holy place. Many villagers believe in Buddhism. People here believe that Manglietia is the embodiment of the Tibetan King and Bodhisattva enshrined in Jiuhua Mountain. Moreover, Chenghua Temple in Jiuhua Mountain will hold the Eye-Connecting Festival once every ten years. Mulian Opera Troupe and a large number of pilgrims from all over the country have to go to Jiuhua through this place, so Mulian Opera naturally flourished in Guichi. In the seventh year of Wanli, Zheng Zhizhen, a native of Qimen, Anhui Province, wrote three volumes of "Mulian Save Mother and Persuade Good Play". Tongxi is a village in Daixi, shitai county, adjacent to Guichi. Guichi, formerly known as Qiupu County, has a stone platform connected with the Tongxi River, which was once under the jurisdiction of Guichi. Therefore, the folk Manglietia in Guichi performed Zheng Zhizhen's "Manglietia to save mother and persuade goodness". According to the word of mouth of the old artists in Limu Village of Qimen and Dayukeng Village of Shitai (by Tunxi River), there was a Mulian troupe here as early as the end of the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Miao Lianxi in Guichi was introduced from Shitai and Qimen in Huizhou. At first, it may be a class club performance abroad. Later, local "local teams" gradually appeared, and Miao Lianxi gradually spread throughout the county from Guichi Mountain area at the northern foot of Jiuhua Mountain.

The realistic psychological needs of the villagers and the traditional clan concept provide internal conditions for the existence and development of Mulian Opera, and the rich and colorful local folk culture in Guichi creates suitable soil for the existence and development of Mulian Opera. Therefore, Guichi Mulian Opera has been passed down to this day.

The performances of Wucun, Taiping and Changlonggui in 2004 are located at the southwest foot of Jiuhua Mountain. When the author talked with the artists of Miao Lianxi in Guichi, the answers of the old artists basically confirmed Professor He Genhai's academic conclusion.

Performing arts that appeal to both refined and popular tastes.

Mulian Opera has a relatively fixed and elegant repertoire, orthodox and rich vocals, magical and exaggerated facial makeup, various trades and a set of performance rules that emphasize ostentation and extravagance. Singing is a combined music system, but after the end of Qing Dynasty, artists made a breakthrough in Qupai and moved closer to Banqiang due to their contact with Beijing Opera and Huizhou Opera. Facial makeup is mainly clean and ugly (clean facial makeup includes Sheng Dan). With red, black and white as the main colors, there are three first-class styles: painted face, standard face, grimace, ingot face and so on. There are many rules for acting. The Miaolian Opera in Guichi was influenced by Yiyang and Qingyang Opera from the very beginning, and it was dominated by high-pitched singing. Later, I sang some Kunqu opera, random play and Hui opera, which lasted for a long time and had great influence, so it still occupied a certain position in the history of Chinese opera.

In fact, there is only one Mulan drama, which is divided into three volumes, with a total discount of 100. It tells the story that Fu Xiang's wife Liu Qing was sent to hell for blasphemy, and her son Fu Lubu went through the Ten Halls of Hell to save his mother, and finally the mother and son reunited. The play has absorbed many folk legends and stories and is full of local flavor; The performance is a combination of "singing, doing, reciting and beating", interspersed with acrobatic performances such as somersault, skipping rope, stepping on the altar and stacking arhats, which is unique in the performance art of traditional operas in China and has a great influence on other operas. In addition, Nuo opera, folk ditty, folk songs, minor, dance, acrobatics, musical instruments, painting, sculpture, paper-cutting and folk customs are also skillfully combined with Mulian opera, which enriches the connotation and expands the extension of Mulian opera and makes Mulian opera have cultural and social functions of appreciation, entertainment, education and persuasion.

It was a warm spring day and a simple stage was set up in front of the ancestral hall in the village. The villagers set up wooden benches and chairs in front of the stage early, and they were looking forward to the arrival of the night.

When the elders in the village finished the ceremony at Wujiang Temple in Tianjiao, the actors behind the stage were almost all dressed up.

With the rapid call and the sound of gongs and drums, I saw "Tianlong Babu" wearing all kinds of costumes, painting faces, riding all kinds of paper horses, and running fast on the stage-the Mulian drama began in such a "meeting the gods and exorcising ghosts".

Maybe it's because there are too few performances in Mulian Opera, or maybe it's easier to hear voices and see actors' faces without masks. On the night of the mountain village in the moonlight, the Mulian opera attracted the attention of many villagers in the dim light ... The actors were full of emotions, rich in emotions and full of tears. The audience has mixed feelings of joy and anger, sadness and sigh about the progress of the plot.

Do not value inheritance and development.

The performance of Miao Lianxi in Guichi was once very prosperous, and there were famous Miao Lianxi artists like Pan Shuanggui, but for various reasons, the performance has been declining. Chang 'an's performance in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was mainly for the success of Wu's genealogy. The villagers spent a lot of time and energy preparing for the performance. There are not enough clothes, so we have to borrow them everywhere. The actors were untidy, so we went to another village to invite them. Due to lack of funds, we had to go door to door to raise funds ... We made great efforts to set up a stage and sing famous songs, but the opera programs could only be greatly reduced. I wanted to sing "Red at Two Ends" (from sunset to sunrise the next day), but this time I only sang for four or five hours. The village is responsible for organizing the "monitor" (equivalent to too few actors who can sing now, most of them are old artists invited from Nuo operas in other villages. Many people have to play multiple roles at the same time, and they have to constantly change clothes and make up, which is very tired. It's not easy to play like this. Zhang Ruigui, a 70-year-old artist, is deeply worried about the inheritance and development of Miao Lianxi in Guichi. He said that because he was familiar with Miaolian Opera since childhood, the singing of Miaolian Opera was similar to that of Nuo Opera. Although I haven't sung Miaolian opera for many years, I can still sing on stage, but after all, I am over 70 years old and time is running out. Nowadays, young people even know little about Nuo opera. Who else is really interested in ancient Chinese opera? ! But this is really a treasure of folk culture.