Opening the "Drama Comes from Wenzhou" Southern Opera Classic Culture Week, "China's First Drama" Comes to Shanghai Opera | Wenzhou | Culture
On July 27th, the media conference for the "Drama Comes from Wenzhou" Southern Opera Classic Culture Week was held at the Wanping Theater in Shanghai. Plum Blossom Award winner Fang Ru will sing the Ou Opera "Zhang Xie's Top Scholar: Street Tour". From August 9th to 14th, Culture Week will present a feast of Wenzhou's most distinctive traditional Chinese opera culture to Shanghai audiences, including "Zhang Xie," which is known as the "first play in China" and "living fossil of traditional Chinese opera".
Wenzhou is the birthplace of the Eastern Ou Kingdom and an important node city on the Maritime Silk Road. The earliest and most well preserved theatrical script discovered in China to date, "Zhang Xie's Champion," was born here. In recent years, Yongjia Kunqu Opera Troupe and Wenzhou Ouju Art Research Institute have successively rehearsed "Zhang Xie's Champion", which has been widely praised. In traditional Chinese opera from all over the country, the shadow of Southern Opera can still be seen to some extent.
The special performance of "Drama Comes from Wenzhou" is divided into six chapters: "Preface", "Hometown of Southern Opera", "Four Seasons Flowers Bloom", "Tanghe Opera Rhyme", "Voice of the Times", and "Epilogue". It integrates various artistic forms of performance, including Ou Opera, Yue Opera, Yongkun Opera, Wenzhou Drum Lyrics, folk songs, puppetry, and children's Peking Opera. The entire performance is full of rich local characteristics and rich historical and cultural heritage of Wenzhou.
The performance of three major plays is also full of attractions. The Ou Opera "The Killing of Dogs" is one of the four major southern operas, which restores the folk characteristics of southern operas and advocates for family harmony and social harmony in a humorous and witty form, immersing the audience in "absurd comedy". The Yueju opera "Jingchai Ji" is also one of the four major southern operas, telling the love story between Wenzhou's top scorer Wang Shipeng and his childhood sweetheart Qian Yulian during the Southern Song Dynasty, who remained steadfast until death. This play was created during the Song and Yuan dynasties and holds an important position in the history of Chinese drama and culture. "Zhang Xie's Champion" is included in the Ming Dynasty's "Yongle Dadian" and is the earliest surviving script of Southern Opera. The adaptation of the Yongjia Kunqu Opera Troupe's performance retains and develops the original work's performance style of using people as props and one actor playing multiple roles, allowing people to appreciate the performance style of early Southern Opera.
After the CCTV 2023 Spring Festival Opera Gala, which was recorded at the Wenzhou Jiushan Book Fair on the first day of this year, was broadcasted, the response was enthusiastic. This evening party is the first time in 33 years that CCTV has moved its home field to the outdoors and arrived in Wenzhou, the hometown of Southern Opera. In order to leverage the spillover effect of CCTV's 2023 Spring Festival Opera Gala, the Wenzhou Municipal People's Government, in collaboration with the Shanghai Opera Art Center and the Shanghai Dramatists Association, held the "Drama Comes from Wenzhou" Southern Opera Classic Culture Week at the Wanping Theater in Shanghai, showcasing the millennium old cultural heritage of Ouyue, further strengthening cultural exchange between Shanghai and Wenzhou, and promoting the integration process of the Yangtze River Delta.
The "Drama Comes from Wenzhou" Southern Opera Classic Culture Week series of activities will also visit major cities and regions such as Beijing, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, as well as supporting cities and first tier overseas cities, to carry out activities such as visiting relatives of traditional Chinese opera and touring classic plays.
