Diaoqiang – A Living Fossil of Traditional Opera

(A distinctive local opera that is found only in one small county in Zhejiang Province, Diaoqiang has a glorious past. It is accredited with having given birth to south China's most popular opera, Yueju, but now it seems that the extinction of this traditional art form is almost inevitable. )

To those who are not particularly familiar with the finer points of Chinese culture, many local operas in the country are virtually indistinguishable. Ask about the excerpt of the opera we've just heard, and I believe that most would say it's not very different from Peking Opera.

In fact, the piece just played comes from a very distinctive form of local opera, one with its own unique tunes. On listening to it carefully, you might recognise some similarities with Yueju, a popular local opera in the south of China. In some respects, too, with its loud and sonorous tunes it has the characteristics of some northern Chinese operas.

This traditional opera is known as Diaoqiang. With a distinguished history of over 600 years, it is now only to be found in the Xinchang area of east China's Zhejiang Province. Accredited with having given birth to Yueju, south China's most popular opera, Diaoqiang has nonetheless managed to preserve the special tunes of some northern Chinese operas, as well as retaining much of the original flavour of the thousand-year-old songs and dances of the Tang and Song dynasties.

Roughly speaking, the operas of the Diaoqiang form can be divided into two categories: those with soft, sentimental tunes and those with loud and sonorous tunes.

The Diaoqiang operas with soft tunes usually relate love stories and similar sounding to Yueju. One example is "Bei Xixiang", adapted from the classic, "Xi Xiangji" or "The Romance of the Western Chamber".

Compared to Yueju, there is quite a significant difference.

Unlike Yueju, Diaoqiang has no orchestra, and is accompanied only by gong and drum music. One performer sings, while many more join the singing at the end of each sentence. This method of singing, involving a chorus, requires a great level of skill from the performers, and is rarely found in other traditional operas in China.

The second type of Diaoqiang opera is dominated by loud and sonorous tunes. This form made its first appearance more recently than the first softer form, during the Qing Dynasty, over 300 years ago.

This second type of Diaoqiang is unique in its use of conspicuously rising and falling melodies. No other local opera in the neighbouring areas shares these musical characteristics.

Another distinctive feature of both forms of Diaoqiang is its music scores. All of them are hand-written, and the names of the tunes are marked with special symbols unique to the opera.

Among the 200 plus hand-written copies of Diaoqiang are a great variety of scripts, ranging from those in the Northern Song Dynasty to those written towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, however, none of the scriptwriters are known today. Despite this anonymity, experts are certain that the writers must have had a profound knowledge of ancient Chinese poetry and the tunes to which they were originally composed.

One such expert in the field, Zhao Ming, has been studying Diaoqiang for over ten years.

"Diaoqiang has two real origins. One is the southern drama of the early Southern Song Dynasty, in existence about 800 years ago. The other is the northern opera of the succeeding Yuan Dynasty. Diaoqiang comes from a combination of both."

According to historical records, Diaoqiang enjoyed wide popularity during the Ming Dynasty, some 500 years ago. It reached the peak of its success about 150 years ago, and then started on a period of gradual decline. Now found only in Zhejiang’s Xinchang County, many people believe that the topography of this mountainous region has helped to protect Diaoqiang from the influence of many chaotic years of wars.

Of course, the survival of Diaoqiang is, to a large extent, down to the dedication of the many old artists who share their love for the art form. But as these people grow older, the number of staff in the Xinchang Diaoqiang Troupe, the surviving troupe in the country, continues to drop. Until new exponents of the form come through, however, it seems that the only option open to the local government in Zhejiang is to finance the troupe’s rehearsals and performances. It is now a question, therefore, of how long before the younger generation of the area will start to take an interest in the conservation of this important feature of their local cultural heritage. One can only hope that the answer will be found sooner rather than later, so that the Diaoqing art form might be saved from the imminent threat of extinction that it currently faces.