Yang Opera Performing Groups, Survival Of The State To Show Comparison And Analysis

Yangju opera, one of the local music theatres in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, boasts of its unique cultural charm and value. In the 1910s, a new genre named "Weiyang opera" was formed in Shanghai out of the combination of three ancient genres in the area of Yangzhou, i.e. daban, wenxi and qingqu; in turn, the former had been out of some kind of temple drama, while the latter two out of the so-called "flower drum" drama. In 1952, the opera was renamed as "Yangju" opera. In the later years Yangju returned to its native place after its long-term development outside. That is what we can find with so many performing troupes in Jiangdu, one of its birthplaces. However, its existence seems to have changed to a great extent.The thesis is a research based on the writer's fieldwork, with its focus on the existence of four typical types of Yangju troupes in Jiangdu region. The four troupes are studied not merely as the observed objects, but as the participators of the opera and the informants for this study. The fact-based description tries to represent the status quo of this genre to some measure, the similarities and differences of the four troupes in various mechanisms, the reasons that they adopt such mechanisms for their existence, and the influence on their existence from diverse mechanisms.The methodology of this thesis is stimulated by cultural studies, with the four troupes as four "texts" for cultural analysis, similar and different at once, and thus everything is extended from the four texts.