Showself Entertainment with Jingzhou Huagu Opera

On September 21st, a large series of live streams “Hello, New China-Chinese Opera, Pick Me” organized by Mobile Management Bureau, Showself Entertainment, and Guangming.com came to Hubei Jingzhou to stream the Huagu opera - “The Moon Bring People Back to The Hometown”.

This opera is derived from the song people sing when they were working in the fields or when they are enjoying their leisure time. Luo Tao, the Vice President of Jingmen Art Theater as well as a national first-class actor, joined the live stream. He introduced its history and how it plays out to the audience.

The play “The Moon Bring People Back to The Hometown” is sponsored by The National Art Fund. It took more than two years from the preparation and planning to the first performance on the stage. This drama told a story about a successful entrepreneur, Zheng Shishan, who came from the Shan Hu village and had been busy with starting a business for many years. When he went back to his hometown at the mid-autumn festival, he saw it has not changed at all; including his first lover’s weak financial condition. On his father’s request, he decided to go back to the village and participated in the election of the village director. He intended to speed up poverty alleviation by implementing advanced concept of innovation and business management. 

The writer of this play, Hu Yingming, Vice President of Hubei Opera Commission and a national first-level writer said: it has many differences from those previous plays. This play exposed some issues contributed by the rural reform and underdeveloped ideas. For example, the capital invasion in the rural area did not lead to a better life for them, only polluting the river and destroyed the ecology there.

Hu Yingming said that the meaning of the play is hidden behind the title. “Hometown” represents villages which have been desolated due to urbanization. “Moon” represents the Chinese traditional culture which is related to people’s emotion and Chinese culture. “Bring” is a verb. “People” represents the whole Chinese people. “Back” reminds people to go back to the traditional culture and build harmony between man and nature, man and society, and man and man. 

Innovative Opera is Charming

Luo Tao introduced that Huagu operas are popular across the country now, and the operas in different places represent different local customs. Huagu opera in Jingzhou has a 200-year history. Audiences of the early traditional one are limited, but the modern operas are more friendly and have stronger regional features in terms of singing style and theme. In 2005, the opera “Waiting for you in the December” have achieved a huge success proved the potential of the modern opera. 

To let the audience identify the difference between the tradition Huagu operas and the modern ones, Luo Tao and Zeng Ju, national first-class actors, Chen Qinfang, national second-level actor have performed classic pieces of the traditional opera “Standing by The Flower Wall” and achieved tremendous praises. 

Chinese traditional opera is a comprehensive art combining music, drama, and performance together. However, with the development of new forms of entertainment, opera audiences are decreased. There is no doubt that they are getting older and older. Showself Entertainment always fulfills its corporate social responsibility and devotes itself to spreading high-quality contents. The series of live streams "Hello, New China -- Chinese Opera, Pick Me" hosted with Guangming.com enables massive audiences to have a look at the backstage of the theater and get closer to the main actors to understand the drama types. According to statistics, during the 90-minute live stream, there were 1.2 million people in total viewed the program through five live-streaming platforms of Showself Entertainment. 

The program "Hello, New China - Chinese opera Pick Me" will go to Hebei, Shandong and other places to give more opportunities to audiences to appreciate the charm of Beijing Opera, Lv Opera, Burlesque, Zhanhua fishing drum opera, and other Chinese traditional operas.