What was the court drama in Qing Dynasty?

In the early Qing Dynasty, the court operas followed the old system of the Ming Dynasty, and the performances were mainly undertaken by the actresses or eunuchs of Jiao Fangsi. When the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty prayed for blessings, the eunuchs in the palace once performed Feng Ming's Collection and You Dong's Reading Li Sao. Twenty years after Kangxi put down the "San Francisco Rebellion", the Qing Dynasty entered a period of comprehensive recovery and ushered in the so-called "peace in the sea" prosperity. The number of performances has increased. The Qing court paid a special fee of 1000 taels, and set up a high platform at Houzaimen, so that the teaching workshop could perform the legend of Manglietia, with a vivid image and a real horse. Xu Li, a servant of the royal family, constantly recruited female talents from Jiangnan to enter the palace to enrich the court drama team and satisfy Kangxi's entertainment.

During the Qianlong period, the court drama was unprecedentedly prosperous. Gan Long is an opera fan. He wrote to expand the organization of the palace opera, and moved the harmony department (the workshop department in the seventh year of Yongzheng was changed to the harmony department) to Nanyuan and renamed it Nanyuan. During this period, eunuch artists were called "internal learning", artists selected from the children of the Eight Banners were called "Qi Sheng", and a large number of folk artists enriched Fu Nan and were called "external learning". "Internal learning" can be divided into big and small, and "external learning" can also be divided into three parts: one, two and three. People's nationality, flag nationality and "internal learning" form a three-legged pattern with unprecedented scale, strong lineup and frequent drama activities.

In the sixteenth year of Qianlong (A.D. 175 1) and the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong (A.D. 177 1), the Queen Mother's sixtieth and eightieth birthdays were celebrated twice on a large scale. In the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong (AD 1790), in order to celebrate the eightieth birthday (happiness), the capital held a large-scale celebration, decorated with lanterns, built pavilions and pavilions, and set up a stage every ten steps. Artists from all over the world are proud to perform in Beijing, and their acrobatics are dazzling. In addition, Qianlong's six tours to the south also brought back many skilled artists from other places, making the theater in Beijing full of flowers.

In the Qing dynasty, the court began to sing legends and zaju in Kunqu opera and Yiyang dialect. In addition to Feng Mingji, Li Sao, The Legend of Mulian and The Journey to the West mentioned above, Qianlong also ordered Zhang Zhao, a scholar in the Cabinet, and Yun Lu, Prince of Zhuangke, to lead the music department, and organized other courtiers to compile festive plays such as The Promise of the Moon, Fa Gong Ya Xi and Jiu Jiu. And court dramas, such as Persuasion of Kindness and Golden Branches (the story of Mu Lian's Saving Mother), Shengping Bao Raft (Journey to the West), Zhi Ding's Spring and Autumn Annals (the story of the Three Kingdoms), Loyalty and Righteousness (the story of the Water Margin), Zhao Shaochuan (the story of Yang Jiajiang), Shen Feng Tian Bang (the story of Shen Feng Romance) and.

The Qing court was overjoyed, and successively built four tall and magnificent stages in the Imperial City, the Imperial Garden and the Que Palace. Among them, the Yin Changting Stage in Yuanmingyuan was burned by Eight-Nation Alliance, and there are still Yin Changting Stage in Ningshou Palace of the Forbidden City, Deheyuan Stage in the Summer Palace and Yinqinglou Stage in Fushou Garden of Rehe Palace (chengde mountain resort). The above four stages have a unified pattern, all of which are three-story buildings. From top to bottom, they are named Futai, Lutai and Shoutai respectively, which can play a role in it at the same time. Shoutai is the main performance area with the largest area. There are three patios on the ceiling and five underground wells under the floor. There is a pulley frame at the wellhead and a winch underground, which can be used to hang actors and props. It is suitable for performing fairy tales and dramas of immortals, gods, immortals, living people and ghosts.

Most of the court dramas in Qing Dynasty are huge, with many characters, lively plots and sometimes wonderful fragments. But on the whole, the thought is mediocre, the royal color is strong, and the dross is still a lot, which is boring. With the royal family as the political and economic backing, the court performance is gorgeous, the scenery is exquisite and the scene is magnificent, which is far from being comparable to the folk troupe. No matter in repertoire, qupai, facial makeup, costumes, props, acting, singing, music and other aspects, it has developed, which has had a certain impact on later operas. However, because of boasting wealth and fighting strangeness, it is far from the freehand brushwork spirit of Chinese drama, which leads to the end of the performance. All kinds of realistic and institutionalized scenery bring the audience into a colorful world, which drowns the actors' singing, reading, doing and playing, weakens the characterization and hinders the healthy development of the performing arts.

The so-called "prosperous time of kanggan" did not last long. In the first year of Jiaqing (AD 1796), a large-scale Anbalism uprising broke out in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Chu. Under the climate of increasing contradictions and crises, court dramas have shrunk dramatically and performance institutions have been streamlined. In the seventh year of Daoguang (A.D. 182 1), Fu Nan was demoted to Shengpingsi, and Jingshan's "foreign studies" were all returned to its original place. Only eunuchs who study art in the palace perform regular small plays.

However, during the Xianfeng period, Emperor Xianfeng was cool, and his concubines, who liked yellow skin and were full of Qing dynasty, were all opera fans. In particular, Cixi, who later became the Empress Dowager and monopolized state affairs, was even more addicted to drama. In the third year of Xianfeng (AD 1860), the practice of selecting minority students was resumed in March. On the one hand, selecting excellent performers from various troupes and teaching eunuchs in the court is called "teaching mentor"; At the same time, it's called "Imperial Palace Sacrifice" to say that the troupe outside entered the palace. From the Sino-Japanese War (in the 20th year of Guangxu, A.D. 1894) to the Gengzi Year (in the 26th year of Guangxu, A.D. 1900), most of the folk celebrities in Beijing were enshrined in the palace, such as Cheng Changgeng, Tan Xinpei and Chang. Regardless of the rise and fall of the country, Cixi only wanted to enjoy it, which made the palace drama abnormal and prosperous. The morbid prosperity of court drama in this period has both negative factors and positive effects, which objectively promoted the improvement and development of Pihuang opera, making it perfect day by day, becoming a "national drama", replacing Kunqu opera and becoming the leader of the drama world.

The development of China's traditional opera art is not only related to the change of world dynasties, but also has its relative independence and continuity. In fact, after the Opium War 1840, at the peak of the prosperity of Peking Opera art, with the rise of the bourgeois reform movement, the reform of traditional Chinese opera began. The improvement of traditional Chinese opera can be roughly divided into three stages, namely, the first stage is from before and after the Reform Movement of 1898 to 1905, the second stage is 19 1 1, and the third stage is after the failure of the Revolution of 1911. The reform movement of traditional Chinese opera marks that the ancient Chinese opera in China has entered a new historical period.

Huaer local opera, represented by Peking Opera, has experienced ups and downs and has continued to this day. It is a kind of collective creation and historical accumulation, during which the painstaking efforts and sweat of folk artists of past dynasties have been poured into it, and various thoughts, feelings and aesthetic concepts have been infiltrated, showing a colorful face. Among them, there is no lack of the essence of democracy, which inevitably leaves the brand of the times and contains the dregs of feudalism. This situation also exists in Song Zaju, Jin, Song and Yuan Nanju, Yuan Zaju, Ming and Qing legends and other classical dramas. It is one-sided to completely deny and uncritically inherit this precious and rich heritage. Total negation will slide to national nihilism, and uncritically inheriting is not a scientific attitude. Only by adhering to Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism and critically inheriting and developing, can China's splendid opera art be carried forward, used by us and passed down from generation to generation.