9 replies to this topic

[karen2]

Kunqu Opera ranks among the most splendid and miraculous cultural art forms created by the Chinese people in their long history. Ever since it came into being at the district of Kunshan near Suzhou in the mid-14th century, Kunqu has been artistically refined over a period of 200 years and has stood out prominently among the various competing schools of opera in China for its “delicate tunes and elegant melodies”.With Suzhou as its base, Kunqu Opera soon became fashionable both at home and aboard, forming, for hundreds of years, the spectacular scene of “all operas taking Kunqu as their ancestor”.




After China entered the modern age, Kunqu Opera underwent a gradual decline from its zenith, due to the dramatic changes in Chinese society. As time goes by, Kunqu Opera lost favor with a large part of its audiences, and its popularity and social influence diminished year after year. Fortunately, Kunqu Opera was not ousted form the stage of history. It survived and remained to be the most influential traditional opera owing to the profound foundation it had laid in the areas of script writing, performing art and theoretical research. In fact, other schools of Chinese opera all take Kunqu Opera as the master and ancestor and benefit a lot from it. There is no denying that Kunqu Opera embodies the highest artistic achievements that the traditional Chinese drama has ever accomplished and retains a unique position in the history of the world culture. Kunqu Opera was honored by UNESCO as one of 19 outstanding cultural forms of expression from different regions of the “　Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in May 2001. and Kunqu Opera was one of the four items that won full votes by a panel of 18 internaional experts.


From:http://www.foreigner...emid_17808.html

[fireball]

Thanks for your information. I loved Chinese Operas. I heard the root of the Beijing Opera was based on Kunqu Opera. Do you have some information about that? Also, what are the differences between Kunqu Opera and Beijing Opera besides the dialects? Thanks!

[sylvester]

Thanks for your information. I loved Chinese Operas. I heard the root of the Beijing Opera was based on Kunqu Opera. Do you have some information about that? Also, what are the differences between Kunqu Opera and Beijing Opera besides the dialects? Thanks!

崑曲 is evolve from 越曲, and 京劇 is from 崑曲.
崑曲’s 崑means the region of 蘇州 and 杭州 nowaday.
京means Beijing, the capital.

崑曲 appear in the region of 江蘇 due to the economic center moved southword to 南京、開封（period of 西晉、南宋）,
some really rich people have to find entertainments. 越曲 is opera that origanlly birth in that region,
been changed by the high educational level people from the north, is become 崑曲.
then the economic center go back to north again（元、明、清）, so the entertainments of opera go north with them,
changed the dialects and tone, it become 京劇.

i love 崑曲 but i am not a specialist for sure.
and i know very little about 京劇.
as i watched few 京劇 before, i can compare the differences between them.

i found the most different feeling of 崑曲 and 京劇 is the tone of them.
the tone of 京劇 is usually much more louder than 崑曲,
it is loud enough for me to say it was a noisy, also the high pitch is more even heard in 京劇.
heard from my teacher, it was because 崑曲 is design to show in a relatively small theatre, for small group of listener say 10-20 people.
but 京劇 is design for shown at pulbic place, say restaurant. chinese restaurant is a noisy place, unlike westener...
or show in front of some noble family, royal family that they have to let 50 or 100 or much more people to hear at same time,
and the stage usually bigger than 崑曲 have, so 京劇 have to speak loud, and use more high pitch.

another difference is 京劇 is much more rely on 肢體語言("body action" in english??),
京劇 get many gesture that each of them imply something,
and that gesture or body action is usually a big, last long.
it may because long duration of body action can let the actor rest their voice,
and for some people that really standing far away from the stage, they cant hear clearly, but can see the action clearly.
for 京劇, the crowd of viewers, litener is always welcome (but not in 崑曲).

崑曲's tone is relatively soft and sweet.
崑曲's theme is always around love affairs, 京劇 is usually around battles.
崑曲 emphasize to give you feelings of love/sadness, 京劇 emphasize to let you feel the noise and excitement.

崑曲 ALWAYS requests high education level (for all about chinese culture, history and philosophy) to understand,
崑曲 always made allusion that you will find an allusion in almost each sentence,
actually, many of chinese(may be most of chinese) nowadays cant fully understand what the 崑曲 lyrics means.
( if a foreigner finishing reading a 崑曲's lyrics, and make fully understand what the lyrics means, that foreigner... should count as foreigner no more since he knows more then most of chinese nowaday knows-_- )
but that is totally another things in 京劇, to understand 京劇, you just have to understand each chinese word, so for chinese, everyone can fully understnad what the lyrics means.

i am not a specialist, above is just what i feels.
if you want to read 崑曲, i recommen you start at 《長生殿》, you will then know chinese can write so great love story that can rival Shakespeare.
just read few chapters of them is ok （定情、密誓、驚變、埋玉、雨夢 that 5 chapters)
it will cost too many times to read all 50 chapters...

Edited by sylvester, 27 November 2007 - 10:20 PM.

[chinamytime]

Kunqu: Mother of Chinese Operas

Kunqu, also known as Kun opera or Kunqu opera, is one of the earliest forms of traditional Chinese drama. Evolved from the Kunshan melody, it has a history of more than 600 years.

At first, Kunqu was simply singing, without any costumes, makeup or acting. Later, a native Kunshanese called Liang Chenyu (1519-1591) transformed Kunqu into stage drama. He was good at play writing, poetry and music. With the help of some other talented musicians, they wrote an opera called “Washing the Silken Gauze”. The performance was a great success. Then Kunqu became quickly popular, and numerous new plays were subsequently created and staged. During Qing Dynasty (1636-1911), Kunqu became a nationwide art form.

I like the makeup of the opera but I don't like the singing. What about you? Is there any way to carry forward it?

Edited by chinamytime, 18 September 2009 - 01:25 AM.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Sofar, Kunqu 昆曲 (Kun Opera) had a history of over 600 years. It originated from the Kunshan 昆山 region of Jiangsu province during late Yuan dynasty and belonged to one of the families of southern Chinese opera. The opera uses Kunshanese dialect to sing the opera. In terms of music instrument, the main instrument is qudi 曲笛 (flute) accompanied by Sheng 笙 , Xiao 箫, pipa 琵琶 etc.

The basic style of Kunqu is its sentimental style, subtle actions and the integration of singing and dancing. In 2001, it became a UNESCO cultural heritage.

Kunqu became a dominant 'fashion' during Ming dynasty, because the dialect of Kunshanese was closer to Nanjing Mandarin (spoken during Ming dynasty).

One of the important works of Kun opera include Wansha Ji 《浣纱记》

Edited by General_Zhaoyun, 18 September 2009 - 02:32 AM.

[chinamytime]

Kunqu: Mother of Chinese Operas

Due to its great influence on other Chinese theatre forms, Kunqu is known as the teacher or mother of many other types of Chinese operas.

It is an elegant opera in terms of music, recitation and the performers’ movements. Due to its soft arias and the graceful movements, it is acclaimed as watermill songs. It is also of great literary value as the performance itself has carried forward the tradition of ancient poetry and common speech.

[yongzheng freak]

I enjoyed the Peony Pavillion when it was playing at the Esplanade yesrs ago. The only onle grouse I ahd was that it did not have any intermission. I know that traditionally, operas do not have intermission but still....Imagine having to hold in your pee for 3 to 4 hours becoz you do not want to miss any part of the opera.

[chinamytime]

Yes, most Chinese traditional operas do not have any intermission. We do not want to miss anything, but we still want to have time to have a little rest. Maybe it needs some reform.

[xat]

The Kunqu opera originates in Suzhou Mt. Kun's tune ,it was one kind art which kneads sang performance, dance and kung fu performing arts.. The Kunqu opera is listed as “humanity to account orally with non-material inheritance representative works” in 2001 by the UNESCO.
Kunqu opera's scripts are “legend”, minority is “zaju”,it is the legitimate Chinese drama script constitution form, the author many for the writer, playwright or the intellectual; The Peking opera is the vulgar and coarse script, the traditional writers are in the society the lower level. The Kunqu opera is the Chinese classical opera(歌剧）, Peking opera is not an opera. The host of Kunqu opera plays music is qu flute, the host of Peking opera plays music is a jinghu.

http://world-culture...g/c.asp?d=15754

[yongzheng freak]

I am going to the Peach Blossom Fan after the Chinese New Year. So excited to see the glorious costumes and not to mention the music...