Special Visit | Field Report on Yihuang County Cultural Center and Yihuang Drama Troupe

“Promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China’s fine traditional culture, and invigorate its vitality with the spirit of our times.” Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to the protection and transmission of intangible cultural heritage, delivering numerous important speeches and issuing critical instructions. During his field investigations, Xi Jinping The General Secretary has conducted on-site inspections of intangible cultural heritage projects on multiple occasions. He has emphasized the need to strengthen the protection and transmission of intangible cultural heritage, actively cultivate inheritors, and ensure that this heritage shines with even greater allure.

Fuzhou City boasts a wealth of intangible cultural heritage resources, with seven national-level intangible cultural heritage items—known as the “Three Operas and Four Dances”—namely Yihuang Opera, Guangchang Meng Opera, Fuzhou Tea-Picking Opera, as well as Nanfeng Tiao Nuo, Le’an Nuo Dance, Lichuan White Lion Dance, and Yihuang He Gang Dance.

Recently, Yang Yunyun, a docent from our museum, and her delegation They traveled to Yihuang County, where they paid a visit to Deng Shuling, deputy director of the Yihuang County Cultural Center, a municipal-level inheritor of Yihuang Opera, and a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage mentor under the “Four 100” program, as well as to Deng Chunhui, a provincial-level inheritor of Yihuang Opera and a municipal-level intangible cultural heritage mentor under the same “Four 100” initiative. They studied Yihuang Opera with both teachers and gained an in-depth understanding of its historical development. Subsequently, they also… Bowing We interviewed Xie Qiaomei, a young opera performer with the Yihuang Opera Troupe, who has previously won a provincial-level drama award, and discussed with her the challenges facing the preservation of Yihuang Opera in the new era, as well as prospects for its future development. Afterwards, the group of docents proceeded to the Bafujun Ancestral Hall, a nationally designated key cultural relic site, to gather on-site materials. The Bafujun Ancestral Hall is an ancient structure from the Ming and Qing dynasties located in Tangyin Town, Yihuang County, Jiangxi Province. Built by the Wu family to commemorate their founding ancestor, Wu Song—known as “Bafujun”—it was first constructed in the eighth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty (1580) and retains the architectural style characteristic of the Gan school of the Ming period. It is said that Tang Xianzu’s celebrated play, “The Peony Pavilion,” was once performed here.

Tang Xianzu’s sole treatise on the theory of Chinese opera is the “Inscription for the Temple of the Opera Deity, Master Qingyuan, in Yihuang County.” Originally composed at the request of Yihuang’s performing‑arts community to commemorate the reconstruction of the Master Qingyuan Temple, Tang Xianzu eschewed conventional formulas and, with broad erudition and concise clarity, crafted a dedicated discourse on the art of opera. Covering such fundamental issues as the origins of opera, its historical development, its transmission and dissemination, its essential characteristics, its functional value, and the processes of artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation, the “Temple Inscription” offers a comprehensive treatment of these topics, making it one of the earliest introductory essays on the study of Chinese opera in China.

The “Temple Record” opens by addressing the origins of Chinese opera. The five words “Man is born with emotion” are placed at the very beginning, emerging out of nowhere as the overarching theme of the entire text—and serving as a banner for Tang Xianzu’s views on both drama and life. Building upon the foundations of classical Chinese aesthetics, Tang Xianzu advanced the “Theory of the Primacy of Emotion,” a doctrine that holds epoch‑making significance in the history of Chinese opera and in the evolution of aesthetic thought. This “Theory of the Primacy of Emotion” runs like a thread through Tang Xianzu’s philosophy and his artistic creation, and it also constitutes the very basis of the “Temple Record.”

Since the late Yuan period, Northern Zaju and Southern Opera have spread throughout the country, giving rise to a number of regional operatic vocal styles. Northern Zaju was divided into the Jizhou and Zhongzhou schools, while Southern Opera boasted four major vocal traditions: Yuyao, Haiyan, Yiyang, and Kunshan. The “Temple Record” describes the situation in the Linchuan and Yihuang areas: originally, the local repertoire was dominated by the Yiyang style; by the Jiajing era, it had been replaced by offshoots derived from Yiyang—namely, the Leping, Huizhou, and Qingyang schools. However, Tan Lun of Yihuang disapproved of these Leping, Huizhou, and Qingyang styles. He invited performers of the Haiyan tradition from Zhejiang to his hometown of Yihuang to teach there. Over time, the Haiyan style took firm root in Yihuang and gradually evolved into a distinct local opera, known as the Yihuang‑ized Haiyan style, or simply the “Yihuang Style.” Tang Xianzu’s “Four Dreams of Linchuan” were composed in this Yihuang style. By the time Tang Xianzu wrote the “Temple Record,” Yihuang opera troupes—Haiyan‑style performers—had become highly renowned, with more than a thousand artists.

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