Posted 2017/12/28
South Opera (or skit of southern tunes), was created in the rural places in Wenzhou at the end of Northern Song Dynasty. At first, South Opera was just a small local opera of some folk songs and dances performing in villages, later it developed gradually and performed in the city. After South Opera entered into Hangzhou, it became mature and popular after widely absorbing the achievements of northern art and developed quickly in the respect of art. At that time, scholars changed their opinions about South Opera and some of them began to create script for South Opera. South Opera was no longer just folk songs and dances and then scripts of complete plot appeared, such as Wanghuan Skit, Wangkui disappoints Guiying, Zujie Skit, Vestal Virgin Zhao and Cai Erlang. On performance, South Opera combined songs and dances with comedies, forming a single opera system of singing, elocution, gesticulation and dancing.
After China was unified in Yuan Dynasty, Northern Za Ju gradually spread in south, enabling South Opera to absorb North Za Ju's qu tunes format of linked sets which regarded music structure as the main body, giving full play to the characters in various sets. At the same time, the tune of South Opera adopted several opera tunes of North Za Ju, creating a form of "South-North qu tunes format of linked sets", adding expressive force to the music and aria of South Opera and enabling it to gradually become more complete and mature. At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, Yuan Za Ju had already declined, but South Opera began to experience a prosperous phase and a lot of excellent works emerged, such as Moon-Worship Pavilion, Liu Zhiyuan and White Rabbit, the Vitex Hairpin, Killing A Dog and the Romance of the Lute. Since then, scholars started to adapt and create opera and the South Opera which had root in folk gradually declined.
Among numerous works of South Opera authors, the appearance of the Romance of the Lute of Gao Zecheng pushed the history of South Opera into an epoch-making stage. Since then, the creation of South Opera came into Scholars' sight, making the creating team bigger and helping them reach one creation climax after another. Therefore the Romance of the Lute, whose script was adapted on the basis of Vestal Virgin Zhao and Cai Erlang, was also called "the founder of South Opera". The appearance of the Romance of the Lute symbolized South Opera had reached its climax of development.
