Huju
Subtitle: traditional opera in modern Shanghai
By: by Jonathan P.J. Stock.
Series: A British Academy postdoctoral fellowship monograph
Publisher: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 279
Subjects: Opera -- China -- Shanghai -- History and criticism; Operas, Chinese -- History and criticism
Description: "China has over three hundred distinct styles of music drama, from exorcism theatre to farce, historical romance, and shadow puppetry. This study considers one of the newer operatic forms. Established just two centuries ago, huju (Shanghai opera), is renowned for its portrayal of ordinary people, not the emperors, courtesans, and heroes of older forms. Acting and make-up aim for realism rather than symbolism, and stories deal with contemporaneous themes: the struggles of lovers to marry, women's rights after the Communist revolution (1949), and life under the new social order established by Deng Xiaoping's reforms in the 1980s. Music ranges from local folksong to syncretic adoptions of Western popular music." "A combination of urban and historical ethnomusicology, the book's findings will engage historians of China and general scholars of music alike."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [256]-272) and index.