The Research Of The Palace Of Eternal Youth In The Qing Dynasty’s Palace

The excerpt named The Palace of Eternal Youth has enjoyed great popularity since it was published.Although it once suffered from the "banning of drama",but from the archives of the performance of the Imperial Court,we can find that the work-The Palace of Eternal Youth,including Xu Ge,Yi Chen,Zhen Bao,Magpie Bridge Secret Oath,has become hot in the Qing Dynasty’s Palace.Going around the performance of the excerpt of the Qing Dynasty and taking it as the research target,this paper tries to outline the performance overview of the excerpt opera of the Imperial court from Qing Dynasty with the help of combing the existing performance files and scripts.Excluding the introduction part,this paper mainly consists of three chapters.The first chapter primarily probes into the performing repertoire of the work The Palace of Eternal Youth in the Qing Dynasty.The excerpt opera from the Ding Dynasty show the characteristic of phasic variations.On the one hand,this change reflects the aesthetic preference of the emperor and empress towards performance culture from the palace;on the other hand,it also reflects the interactive performance relationship between the royal court and the folk.The ritualized tendency of the palace performances made some plays,which were not often performed among the people preserved at the royal court.However,the repertory that has been performed by the folk for a long period of time will also enter the Imperial court because of the introduction of folk actors and troupes,which would be absorbed and transformed by the Imperial Court ultimately.The second chapter mainly discusses the performance script of The Palace of Eternal Youth from Qing Dynasty.There exists no great distinction among the royal court script,Hong Sheng’s original work and folk performance.However,there are still subtle adjustments in terms of Qupai,Quci,Binbai and Kehun.The purpose of such adjustments is to adapt to the grand scale of the palace performance along with bustling occasions,and some are affected by the palace culture and tend to be elegant.Furthermore,the Qing Palace also retained the performance script of The Palace of Eternal Youth of different tones and periods.The extant inner court version about the excerpt also reflects the changes of the opera from the early Qianlong and Jiaqing periods to the early Republic of China.The third chapter mostly explores the performance situation of The Palace of Eternal Youth from Qing Dynasty,including performance time and occasion,performance form and place,operas’ arrangement and rehearsal,as well as the guidance,rewards and punishments from the emperor and the empress.The occasion and time of the excerpt opera reflect the combined features of elegance and vulgarities,ritual and entertainment in the palace.The performance forms and locations are flexible,including formal performances on large stages,small and medium-size stages and small-scale acting in the inner palace.The arrangement and rehearsal of the repertory items reflects the excerpt’s forming process of growing out of nothing in the inner court.The guidance,rewards and punishments from the emperor and the empress reflects the direct influence of royal preferences on the performance of the inner Court.