Pingjiang Lantern Opera is known as Lantern Opera in the folk. It is a traditional Han drama popular in Pingjiang County, Hunan and Dongxiang, Liuyang. It combines Pingjiang dialect and Changsha Mandarin and refines it into stage language. There are more than 100 traditional repertoires. Most of the early repertoires were created by artists, reflecting rural life and having a strong earthy flavor. In 2006, Pingjiang Lantern Opera was identified as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list projects in Hunan Province. History of Pingjiang Lantern Opera Pingjiang Lantern Opera has a long history. The Ming Dynasty's "Lei Lian Cai Xin Shangyuan" records: "The building is bright with thousands of candles, and the mountain opera is a hundred layers." The mountain opera refers to the early lantern opera. There are two Han folk legends: one is that Song Renzong (1023-1056) built Qingzhan, and the Chinese people hung lanterns and performed operas to worship the gods, which has been passed down to this day; the other is that in the Northern Song Dynasty, none of the 108 Liangshan generals had a good end, and their souls were still lingering. People set up stages and performed operas in the wild to comfort the dead, so it was called lantern opera. In the early days, lantern opera was a pair of lanterns (i.e. ground flower drums) with one female lead and one clown or two female leads and two clowns, with hand towels and fans as the main props, singing and dancing, singing lantern tunes, and performing some rural life fragments without dramatic contradictions, or blessings, or playing. According to Pingjiang's traditional custom, from the tenth day of the first lunar month to the Lantern Festival every year, amateur artists form a lantern class, accompanied by boxers, beat gongs and drums, and go from village to village. At each house, the boxers first perform martial arts, and then one female lead and one clown or two female leads and two clowns sing and dance, sing one or two tunes and then disperse. In the process of dramatization, it also went through the stages of two small plays and three small plays, and gradually formed its own main tune "Sichuan tune" and "Da Luo tune". Contents of Pingjiang Lantern Opera Pingjiang Lantern Opera developed from the comprehensive arts of comedy and folk rap, performance, and dance in the Song Dynasty. Its accompaniment, repertoire, roles and performances are all very local. The music accompanying Pingjiang Lantern Opera is divided into two categories: vocal tunes and accompaniment music. The vocal tunes are divided into banqiang, minor tunes and special tunes. The structural characteristics of banqiang are "square", short and simple, with one tune and one ban. In one tune, there is no need to change from slow to fast or fast to slow. The tune is changed by changing the tune. Banqiang is divided into Sichuan tune and daluo tune. Sichuan tunes include Yinchuan tune, Shuangchuan tune, two and a half bans, guide boards, call heads, and Aizi. Daluo tunes are divided into seven-character sentences and cross-piers, which are similar to the "Beilu Luoqiang" of Yueyang Flower Drum Opera. The melody of minor tunes is soft and flexible, and it is a unique singing style with a strong local color. Its structural characteristics have no strict beat requirements and can change according to the mood and performance of the characters. Some songs have multiple singing methods, such as "Ten Pairs of Shoes", and its singing method can be adjusted according to the emotions. Special tunes are generally a kind of singing style created by artists of all generations according to the special singing needs of certain repertoires, combining some tunes in banqiang with folk songs. The establishment of Pingjiang Flower Lantern Opera Band has always been divided into civil and military fields. The civil field is mainly Dajian. The horse gong, a percussion instrument, has a prominent center. Whether it is played while walking or sitting, it must be thrown into the air before being played. The gong sound is unique, simple and has a strong local flavor. The role system of Pingjiang lantern opera was originally called "three and a half" pillars, with three roles: Sheng, Dan and Chou. Half of them are "Dian Yuxiang", that is, "playing a higher official". During the performance, they wear hats at the eyebrows. They are special roles between Sheng and Chou. There are not many plays, but they are required in every show, so they are called half pillars. During the prosperous period of lantern opera in the late Qing Dynasty, it developed into one Chou, two Jing, three Sheng and four Dan. Sheng roles include Lao Sheng, Wen Sheng, Wu Sheng and Nai Sheng. Dan roles include Lao Dan, Zheng Dan, Guimen Dan, Yao Dan and Hua Dan. Chou roles are collectively called "Sanhua", which is the main role in lantern opera. There is a saying that "there is no lantern opera without Sanhua", so 80% of the plays have "Sanhua" roles, commonly known as "running all over the stage", making jokes, funny and humorous, which makes people laugh. The performance of the clown is rough and bold, extremely exaggerated, and has a strong earthy flavor. The performance art of Pingjiang Lantern Opera has absorbed the specialties of various folk dances, martial arts, storytelling, and rap art. It pays attention to singing and dancing, and pays attention to the comprehensive use of programs such as mouth, eyes, body, hands, and steps. The clown's mouth skills are relatively difficult, and there are lotus leaf mouth, shuttle mouth, horizontal and vertical one-line mouth, crucian carp mouth, 1 mouth, and swallowing mouth. The eye techniques include joy, anger, worry, sadness, shock, madness, dream, thought, slant, charm, blindness, illness, and death; the female role also has the special skills of snake silk eyes and hanging eyes. There are nearly 20 kinds of footwork, including cloud steps, lotus steps, ladder steps, pile steps, stilt steps, single and double glasses steps, rooster stepping water steps, broken steps, crab steps, and mandarin duck steps. The makeup pigments are mainly red, black, and white. There are several special facial makeups for "Sanhua": "1 face", "dragonfly face", "flower butterfly face", "cicada face", "yuanbao face", "shuttle face", etc. There are more than 100 traditional repertoires of Pingjiang Lantern Opera. Most of the early repertoires were created by artists, reflecting rural life and having a strong earthy flavor. Although emperors and generals appear in some repertoires, they are also the objects of ridicule in the imagination of farmers, so there are many comedies and farces, which are vivid, humorous, and rich in the characteristics of Han folk literature. Artists call it "48 Wei" (wei means individual). In the late Qing Dynasty, in order to end the history of "wild stage opera" and "grass stage opera", artists began to transplant local operas or shadow puppetry repertoires, involving all aspects of social life, and the repertoire increased to "72 Wei" to "120 Wei". After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the traditional operas "Noisy Duifang" and "Lin San Shouhua" that were sorted out and adapted, and the modern operas "Ji Bao Huimen", "Jianchuanghua" and "Guan Lantern" that were created, etc., participated in the Hunan Provincial Amateur Art Festival and won awards, or were published in drama magazines. Pingjiang Lantern Opera Inheritance Significance Pingjiang Lantern Opera's repertoire, dialogue, vocal style, music, performance, performance venues and performance customs all carry a lot of Pingjiang's historical and cultural information, and are "living fossils" for studying Pingjiang's historical culture and folk culture. At the same time, Pingjiang Lantern Opera preserves a wealth of traditional repertoires, vocal styles, music and performance art, which are valuable materials for studying the evolution of Chinese folk operas and the formation and development of local operas. In 2006, Pingjiang Lantern Opera was identified as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list items in Hunan Province. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)