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Huju (simplified Chinese: 沪剧; traditional Chinese: 滬劇; pinyin: Hùjù), or Shanghai opera is a variety of Chinese opera from Shanghai. It is typically sung in the Shanghainese.

It is particularly popular in Baihe, the oldest town in the Qingpu District of Shanghai. There are eight to ten huju troupes in the town, and many local residents hire the troupes to perform for weddings and funerals.

Huju is accompanied by an ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments, including dizi (transverse bamboo flute), erhu (two-stringed fiddle), pipa (pear-shaped lute), yangqin (hammered dulcimer), and percussion. The instrumentation and style are closely related to the instrumental genre of Jiangnan sizhu.

The famous Chinese composition "Purple Bamboo Melody" (紫竹调; 紫竹調) is adapted and used for huju.

History

Shanghai opera rooted in the folksongs of Huangpu River area. According to the historical records in 1796, it has been more than 200 years from the original huaguxi to contemporary Shanghai opera.

In the Qianlong emperor of Qing dynasty, Huaguxi was very popular in Shanghai. Influenced by huaguxi and other forms of drama, in Guangxu emperor of Qing dynasty, these folksongs developed into Tanhuang (滩簧).In order to distinguish it from Sutan and Nibo Tanhuang, Shanghainese people called it bentan (本滩), also shentan (申滩). Performance of shentan began in Shanghai around 1900s.

Before and after the revolution of 1911, shentan were performed in many entertainment places in Shanghai. In 1914, Wenbin shao, Lanting Shi, Shaolan Ding organized "zhenxinji" to improve bentan. It was then renamed as shenqu.

In 1941, Shanghai Huju She found in Shanghai. It was an opera troupe consisted of many opera performers. They renamed shenqu into Huju. Huju had its increasing formalization during this period.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Huju was a champion in performing modern plays. It adopted divisions of acts and recognized the role of the playwright and director at a much earlier time. Red Lantern and Shajiabang—the most influential Jingju plays among the eight model plays created during the Cultural Revolution—were actually both adapted from Huju plays.

Artistic characteristic

Huju is performed in the Shanghainese, which is not mutually intelligible with mandarin. In other words, a person who comes from other places would not understand the lyrics of a Huju piece.

It is destined to reflect some aspects of real life because it comes from folksongs. The performance of the early Huju only needed two performers. One played musical instrument and the other told contemporary stories. Huju also adopted many elements of movies and dramas in lighting, expression and stage designs. Through Huju, people can get a better knowledge of the life and history of Shanghai People.

Present situation

Like many of the other regional opera styles, Huju is in imminent danger of disappearing. Wu dialect, which is represented by Shanghainese has not received much attention from the public. The performances of Huju is decreasing. Also, many performers of Huju nowadays are getting old, and few young actors take up this art form, since there are much better influence to be taken on TV, movies and so on. Meanwhile, lack of good Huju scripts is also a big problem for the survive of Huju.

External links

• Article about huju
• Article about huju
• Article about American singing huju

See also

• Shaoxing opera, opera from the Shaoxing region of northeastern Zhejiang Province

Category:Culture in Shanghai Category:Chinese opera