Qi Opera Mulian Opera is a performance custom that focuses on "Mulian Biography" and mixes with other series of operas. It is a complex repertoire performance system. In Hunan, Mulian Opera was performed in many temple fairs in the past. These repertoires include: "Mulian Biography" sung on the Zhongyuan Festival, Guanyin sang "Journey to the South" (also known as "Xiangshan"), Guanwang sang "Three Kingdoms" (also known as "Master Opera" and "Master Opera"), Yuewang sang "Yue Biography" (also known as "Gold Medal"), and "Journey to the West", "Investiture of the Gods", "Hunyuan Box", "Water Margin" and "Liang Biography" (playing the story of Emperor Wu of Liang) sung in temple fairs. To be precise, "Mulian Biography" is an independent repertoire, and the name of Mulian Opera comes from "Mulian Biography". In 2006, Qi Opera Mulian Opera was identified as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list projects in Hunan Province. "Mulian Biography" tells the story of Mulian saving his mother. The story of Mulian saving his mother originated from Buddhist scriptures, which were introduced to China during the Western Jin Dynasty. In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the storytelling form of "Maha Moggallana Rescues His Mother from the Underworld" was produced. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the drama "Practicing Filial Piety, Mulian Rescues His Mother" appeared in the capital of Bianliang (Kaifeng). In the Ming Dynasty, the literati Zheng Zhizhen compiled it into a 100-act drama "Encouraging Good Deeds". In the Qing Dynasty, "The Story of Mulian" had entered the palace, and the "Golden Code of Encouraging Good Deeds" named during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (Zhang Zhaoji) had as many as 237 acts. At this point, "The Story of Mulian" developed from a single-act play into a series of plays (seven acts) that could be performed for seven consecutive days and nights. This is a repertoire of history, folklore, culture, sociology, politics, art and other academic values. It is a "living fossil" of Chinese opera art and a rich intangible cultural heritage. The core repertoire of Qi Opera Mulian Opera is Qi Opera Gaoqiang "Mulian Biography". Qi Opera Gaoqiang "Mulian Biography" is a unique one among the "Mulian Biography" in my country. It was introduced to southern Hunan in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. It was combined with local religion, customs, language and art to form a Qi Opera Mulian Opera performance system with strong characteristics. Qi Opera artists call it the "opera ancestor" or "opera mother" of Qi Opera Gaoqiang. The whole play consists of 7 volumes, including "The Prequel of Mulian" (2 volumes in total) and "The True Story of Mulian" (5 volumes in total, each volume lasts 810 hours and can be performed for seven consecutive days and nights. Among them, the plot of "The Prequel of Mulian" is "The Persuasion to Do Good", which is the creation of Qi Opera artists. The whole play retains more than 200 prototype tunes of Gaoqiang and many percussion music of drum opera. There are many wonderful and fascinating stories in the plot. The performance is mixed with various plays, pantomime, folk art, martial arts, juggling, and unique skills, each with its own merits. Many large amounts of added elements can also be independently formed into short plays, which are called "Hua Mulian" by the people (meaning to add color and be as beautiful as flowers). Qi Opera Mulian Opera is distributed in areas where Qi Opera is popular. In Hunan Province, it is mainly distributed in Hengyang, Shaoyang, Lingling (now Yongzhou), Chenzhou, Qianyang (now Huaihua) and other places in southwestern Hunan. 5 cities and nearly 50 counties. The performance characteristics of Qi Opera Mulianchuan are also the most prominent, with strong sacrificial rituals, rich emotional colors, strong local flavor, realistic expression techniques, diverse performance methods, flexible stage processing, etc., all of which are highly entertaining and watchable. 1. High flexibility and great scalability. The main story of Qi Opera Mulianxi is Mulian saving his mother. However, many performance clips that have nothing to do with Mulian saving his mother are mixed into the play. Such as "The Mute Carrying the Madman", "Three Craftsmen Fighting for a Seat", "The Monk Carrying the Old Man", "The Nun Going Down the Mountain", "The Monk Going Down the Mountain", "The Monk and the Nun Adjusting", "Capturing Wang Kui Alive", "Hai's Hanging Beam", etc., are rich in content and meet the audience's aesthetic needs to the greatest extent. 2. Strong local color and life atmosphere. In the Qi Opera "Mulian Chuan", many places use realism and naturalism to reflect Reflecting life. For example: sharing radishes, beating three times, striking gongs, returning evil spirits, burning incense, etc., performed by actors and audiences. For example, after Liu Siniang gave birth to Fu Luobu, according to local customs, she had to "beat three times". The troupe owner invited a prestigious local gentleman and his wife to act as Fu Luobu's grandparents to come on stage to congratulate. The first thing to do in the court was to prepare baby clothes, shoes, aprons, diapers, and fruits and red eggs in advance, put them in a box, send them to the stage, and let the audience taste them, and take out some to eat for the people on the stage. Although this performance seems primitive, it has a strong local folk color and life atmosphere. 3. Diverse performance forms and peculiar expression techniques. There are hundreds of performances and various folk skills in "The Biography of Mulian". Such as martial arts, juggling, magic, stunts, pantomime, etc. Martial arts such as the "Stacking Luohan" in "Luohan Performing Martial Arts", big and small Luohan perform many martial arts routines Stunts include "tree-falling", "hanging", "stepping on high feet", "flying forks", "playing with fangs", "spitting fire", etc. Acrobatics include "two busy" in "Finding Mother in the Five Palaces", where one person pretends to be two people playing and fighting. Pantomimes include "Silent Nine Palaces" and "Ghosts Fighting Thieves". The whole play has no lines, but is vivid, humorous and interesting with just a few notes or the actors' body movements. There are also deformation performances. In "Ask the Monk to Open the Road", Liu wears a mask to break the road god, and after Liu is escorted off the stage, the coffin is carried around the stage for a week. The five ghosts who were ambushed in advance escort Liu to the stage, and the road god becomes Liu's ghost after removing the mask. 4. Lively scenes and a stage without time and space constraints. Qi Opera "The Legend of Mulian" is rooted in the folk. The performance venue is sometimes a temporary straw stage, and sometimes a fixed Wannian stage, all of which are open on three sides and face the audience. This kind of stage can be expanded and extended at will, and can be performed from the stage to the stage, and performed in the streets, towns and villages. For example, in "New Year's Birthday", Liu Jia, his wife and son, carried gift boxes and set off firecrackers, and walked onto the stage to wish Mr. Fu and his sister a happy new year; in "Recommending the Dead", Yili was ordered to come down from the stage to the Sutra Hall to ask the monks to chant, and the monks led the monks to the stage to perform a real ritual; in "Thunder Strikes the Kidnapper", Lei Gong and Dian Mu chased two kidnappers, who had to run among the audience and could grab any items from the vendors at will; in "Begging for Alms from Luobo", after Liu Siniang's death, Fu Luobo went to the West to seek alms and help his mother to go to the West to obtain scriptures. He stepped down from the stage in a cassock, walked to the small town and the countryside, bowed to everyone he met, and went door to door to ask for alms. This stage treatment that closely combines performance and life gives the audience an immersive artistic experience. The singing style of Qi Opera Lianchuan belongs to the qupai style. After the Yiyang Opera was introduced to Qiyang, it was accepted by local artists. Yiyang Opera, which has the tradition of "changing the tune and singing", absorbs the nutrients of local folk songs and folk music, and after a long period of evolution, it has formed the Qi Opera Gaoqiang. At the same time, when Yiyang Opera was singing "The Story of Mulian", Buddhism and Taoism competed to sing it, so it was influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, and Buddhist music elements and Taoist music elements were integrated into Gaoqiang music. To this day, there are still many Buddhist songs in the singing of Qi Opera "The Story of Mulian", such as "Buddha Praise" and "Incense Praise" in "Yulan Assembly", which are basically Buddhist songs. Qi Opera "The Story of Mulian" has 214 tunes, accounting for more than 80% of the total 240 tunes in Qi Opera Gaoqiang. Among the 214 tunes, there are 10 tunes derived from the names of Tang and Song Dynasty big tunes, 72 tunes derived from Tang and Song Dynasty famous tunes, 15 tunes derived from the names of various palace tunes, 9 tunes derived from Buddhism, and 6 tunes with the same name as Yuan Dynasty tunes, totaling 112 tunes, accounting for half of all the tunes in "The Story of Mulian". Among the other half, a considerable part was created by later generations, a part of it was absorbed from the tunes of Yuan Dynasty opera, and the rest was derived from various folk songs, rap, and trumpet tunes. Therefore, it has a strong, simple, and primitive southern folk song flavor. There are two forms of Qi Opera Gaoqiang: "Counting Boards" and "Rolling Sentences" (called Hanging Sentences in Qi Opera). The dragging of the singing is accompanied by percussion and human voice. The Yonghe School is accompanied by the scene and backstage people, gongs and drums; the Baohe School uses suona to help in addition to human voices and gongs and drums. The performance of Qi Opera "Mulian Biography" is special in the performance venue and paper-made stage products. The performance venues include: a temporary straw stage or a fixed Wannian stage; a Sutra Hall is set up opposite the stage, and the monks have to recite in the Sutra Hall during the entire performance. 1; a "Fu Lu Shou" and "Three Stars Picture" are hung on the stage, and two door curtains with "Seeking Longevity Picture" and "Two Immortals of Harmony and Unity" are hung on the two doors of "Out of General" and "Into the Prime Minister". During the performance, "Yuhuangtai", "Lotustai", "Yanwangtai", "Dianjiangtai" and "Zentai" are set up as needed. The inheritance pedigree of the performance of Qi Opera "Mulian Biography" is very old and can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, but there are no detailed written records. There are written records that starting from the Shengli Class and Hongzi Class in the second year of Emperor Xianfeng of the Qing Dynasty (1852), before 1949, there were 79 classes of Qi Opera. Qi Opera Mulian Opera is mainly passed down through living bodies. The art is there when the person is alive, and the art is gone when the person dies. In the process of the spread and development of Qi Opera Mulian Opera, a group of famous artists have emerged. The performance art and experience they created have been passed down from generation to generation through the master-apprentice relationship. Qi Opera Mulian Opera has a strong southern flavor and mountain atmosphere. It is a magnificent art palace. It has a variety of forms of expression and novel and unique means of expression. It occupies an important position in Chinese local operas and even has a significant impact in the international cultural field. In 2006, Qi Opera Mulianxi was included in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list of Hunan Province. (No pictures yet, please provide.) (No pictures yet, please provide.)