The Development Of Traditional Opera In Shanghai During The Anti-japanese War

The anti-Japanese war is a glorious page in the history of liberation for the Chinese nation.It is also the very war of which the Chinese nation obtains the complete victory for the fight against the invasion of imperialism with duration of more than a hundred years since the Opium War in the modern history of China.Facing the invasion and occupation of the Japanese army,the respective levels,the respective political powers and the respective social communities in Shanghai struggled for the fight against the same enemy and hatred and conducted an arduous fight against the Japanese invaders on the aspects of politics,economy and culture etc.during this period,the traditional opera field in Shanghai used the art of traditional opera as the weapon for the fight which played an active function for the anti-Japanese propagation and the encouragement of the civilians.After the eruption of the anti-Japanese war in 1937,the nationalist army retreated from Shanghai for which Shanghai entered the period of isolation.During this period,under the leadership of the Communist Party of China,the creation of Beijing opera highly held the flag for the salvation against the Japanese,Ouyang Yu Qian and Zhou Xinfang led the troupe of Chinese nation and Yi Feng She respectively to make and perform multiple historical dramas,they used the ancient history as the metaphor for the current time and conducted the anti-Japanese propagation.Although they were prohibited and threated by the puppet government of the Japanese,the artists of drama did not retreat,they did not shake and neither did they compromise for which they showed a deep patriotism.The performance of Yue Opera had its prosperity and became the rising star on the stage of opera.The tune of Shanghai became the drama of Shanghai;its audiences covered the Bund through the radio and the performance in theaters for which it became a mature opera.At this moment,although the performance of “Kunqu” was frustrated frequently,the artists did not give up any opportunity of performance,they persisted on the stage.Japanese troops occupied Shanghai concession area in the year of 1941 after the Pacific war broke out and then shanghai has been fully occupied.Japanese troops have come up with many ways to try to strengthen the control of the Shanghai citizens from every possible aspect in terms of politics,economy,ideology,and culture and so on.On the one hand,a series of dramatic censorship have been issued by Japanese puppet government to control opera performing market and further to enslave Shanghai people.On the other hand,the Japanese puppet government tried all the despicable ways to force famous actors to conduct performance.During this period,some operas such as Cantonese Opera,Huai Opera and Yangzhou Opera have ceased to continue their performance in shanghai and returned home for the reason that the whole society was in such a time of chaos and Japanese puppet government strictly controlled the opera performance.Although Beijing Opera performance was not interrupted,there have been few new plays and it centered on traditional ones.Then commercial drama market has revealed its disadvantages,and theaters can quickly obtain economic returns once they invited famous actors to conduct performance.Beijing Opera artists have made an indelible contribution to national operas when they focused on cultivating new generations of successors for inheriting national opera.Shanghai opera and Yue opera,on the other hand,vigorously developed at this time.They not only developed new plays but also have been reformed successfully and welcomed by the masses of Shanghai residents.The main reason why Yue opera and Shanghai opera could be developed in the period of Japanese occupation was that their plays were able to cater to the taste of citizens at that time.During the anti-Japanese War,the quantity of papers for operas had been reduced compared with it before the war,but its value has not been reduced.The periodical of Beijing Opera was still deeply loved by the readers,the “Drama of Ten days” founded by Zhang Guyu and “Monthly Periodical of Drama” of Zheng Zibao were the paper of Beijing Opera that was most welcomed by the readers,the comment on the Beijing opera written by the commentators of Beijing Opera is fascinating,their opinions were objective.Yue Opera and Hu Opera had their own journals respectively with large circulation;the interaction in the comment field and drama field was frequent which jointly pushed the development of drama.On the aspects of education and inheritance,artists of Beijing Opera had been cultivating new successors who had made a contribution that cannot be forgotten for the inheritance of national drama.On November 8th 1939,Shanghai Theater School was officially established,this is a vocational school of Beijing Opera,its purpose is to advocate and organize the traditional drama and cultivate the talents of Beijing Opera” Artists in the generations of “Zheng” who were graduated from this school became the new force on the stage of Beijing Opera in Shanghai after the victory of the anti-Japanese War.On the aspect of Yue Opera,the female class of Yue Opera emerged in Shanghai after which the male class faded.Male artists successively transferred to other industries,among whom some of them entered the female class for teaching.In the whole anti-Japanese period,there were about ten classes of Yue Opera and Art Education.Hu Opera was still dominated by the apprentice,due to the gradual prosperity of the career for Hu opera,the troupe required for more actors,Wenbin Troupe once organized for a class of training.On the aspect of operation of theaters and management of troupes,war made some theaters in Shanghai be ruined in the fires of war,but the prosperity of performance enabled the theaters survive for the continuous operation.The troupe of Beijing opera was operated in accordance with the commercialized mode,on the aspect of management for the troupes of Hu opera and Yue Opera,both of them were conducted with reform and a new operation route which was applicable for the drama respectively was found.The loss of cultural career brought by war cannot be calculated with number.During the anti-Japanese war,under the relentless effort of the artists for Shanghai drama,not only did the career of drama develop continuously,the social positions of artists were also improved.They highly held the flag of salvation against the Japanese,under the leadership of the Communist Party in China,they added a bright color in the field of culture during this period.