Research On Private Chinese Opera Collection In The Period Of

Collection of Chinese opea’s books began in the Song and Yuan dynasties, that recorded considerablly in contents of bibliophiles, opera catalogues, notes of scholars and works.In about800years that the development of collection of Chinese operas books, due to many reasons including the concept of collection of operas books which was not for the public, Chinese operas had never been regarded as the research object, collection of Chinese operas is obscure in ancient time.So these collection that is easy to be scattered can not bring an important impact on the study of Chinese operas in the ancient time.In the period of the Republic of China, with the penetration of western literature and the rise of Chinese popular literature, in the social reform and unrest, the Chinese opera collection campaign launched by individuals not only plays an important role in protecting Chinese ancient documents and culture but has a significant impact on the construction of modern Chinese opera studies. Compared with ancient opera collection, the campaign in the period of the Republic of China has some changes in several aspects such as collector, the idea, range and function of collection etc. First of all, most collectors are opera researchers or artists, who take opera performance or opera research as a profession. Their purpose of opera collection is to make academic research. The activities and communications concerning opera collection and Chinese opera studies between collectors are frequent. Domestic opera researchers co-found opera research community, exchange literatures and discuss all kinds of questions in opera studies; Chinese and Japanese scholars also interact with each other frequently, not only preserving rare literatures but affecting mutually the collecting scope and opera studies. Secondly, the concept of Chinese opera collection in the period of the Republic of China changes, which plays an important role in opera moving into modern academic research. Dueto the research demand, opera researchers spare no effort to collect relevant literatures, whichenhances the value of opera literature and lays the foundation of empirical studies for operadevelopment. Thirdly, in comparison with that of Chinese traditional opera collection, thecollecting scope in this period is larger, extending from written literatures like Zaju of Yuan,legends of Ming and Qing to folk stage literatures like Liyuan opera, scores, figure scores,which expands the research field of opera studies. Therefore, the number of opera collectionis extremely enormous in the period of the Republic of China. Fourthly, the functions ofprivate opera collection in this period not only represent in preservation, arrangement,compilation and publication, which paves the way for opera studies but have substantialimpact on the improvement of modern opera system, boosting the construction of Chineseopera studies from the research on the history, literature, theories and theatre performance ofChinese opera.This paper, after reviewing the relevant history of private opera collection in the period ofthe Republic of China, in the sight of Chinese opera collection history and opera developmenthistory, regards opera collection as the existing way of modern opera’s occurrence andrevolution, and examines the construction and variation of Chinese opera as well as the realcollecting performance and academic achievement of private collectors in that period.