Tibetan Opera In Recent Decades Changes

This thesis aims to discuss the changes, developments and inheritance of Tibetan Opera and the professional training of the new generation of actors since the foundation of P.R.C. Based on the rich research fruits and the first-hand materials collecting from field-work, it tries to draw out a clear historical way along which the Tibetan Opera goes since the foundation of P.R.C. by comparing these two kinds of research results.This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the preface, which illustrates the significances of this topic, the research methods and the limitations. Its main clue is the history of Tibetan Opera and emphasizes the interaction of different cultures in nowadays-cultural context. The interaction has greatly influenced the development of Tibetan Opera for few decades and it will continue affecting the future development of Tibetan Opera.The second chapter is about the configuration of Tibetan Opera. It gives a brief introduction on different hypothesis on the origins, the different cults, the contents, the customs of performance and the masks of the operas. At the same time, it gives some comments on the relationship between "Ajialamo", "Zangxi" and 'Tibetan Opera", the names assigned respectively by Tibetan people themselves, Han people and English speakers.The third chapter discusses significant policies on Chinese opera by Chinese government during some specific periods after the foundation of P.R.C. and the impacts on Tibetan Opera made by these policies. In this part, it gives examples of modern Tibetan Opera recreated in these periods and characterized by these periods. It also makes comparisons and contrasts between the modern and traditional Tibetan Opera and discusses the controversies on the reforms of Tibetan Opera and the new problems of mixing-up of the traditional and the modern.The fourth chapter studies the persistence and inheritance and the future of Tibetan Opera. By using the Tibetan Opera Troupe China as an example, it briefly describes the ways of persisting and inheriting the traditions of Tibetan Opera, the methods of training the new generation of actors; and there are other two examples, Xue folk Opera Troupe and Niangre folk artistic Troupe and some comments on developments and inheritance in recent years. It provides some advice on the future development of Tibetan Opera and gives some examples of the efforts which havebeen made.The fifth chapter is the conclusion, which briefly reviews the whole content and expresses the expectation of this thesis: drawing more attention on the issues of the development and inheritance of Tibetan Opera.