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Chapter 1 The Origins of Yue Opera Yue opera originated with a peasant form of story-singing in the Zhejiang countryside in the mid-nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this form underwent great transformations and was a popular urban spectacle in Shanghai by the end of the 1930s. Significantly, the latter phase of the opera’s early development overlapped with the rise of women’s Yue opera, as “all-female troupes” (nü ban) gradually replaced traditional “all-male troupes” (nan ban). While all-male troupes largely disappeared by the end of the 1930s, a gender-straight troupe (in which men play men’s roles and women play women’s roles) appeared in the Communist guerrilla area of Siming Mountain (Siming Shan) in eastern Zhejiang during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), representing an insignificant variation of Yue opera. Women’s Yue opera has since become the mainstay and the most distinctive feature of the genre. The double transformation in the early development of Yue opera—from rural to urban and from all male to all female—took place amid dynamic tensions between Zhejiang’s countryside and the emerging treaty-port city of Shanghai. These changes also occurred in the context of social, political , and economic upheavals brought about by the 1911 Republican Revolution , which terminated China’s long imperial history, and the May Fourth New Culture Movement, which advocated adoption of a wide range of Western ideas, such as science, democracy, and women’s liberation. These economic, political, social, and cultural upheavals generated a popularculture phenomenon—the rise of folk operas throughout the country in the early twentieth century and the consequent feminization of opera culture, of which Yue opera is only one, but distinct, example. 26 Beijing Opera and the Male-Centered Opera Culture of the Qing Dynasty In order to understand the historical significance of the rise of this modern feminine opera, it is necessary first to historicize its predecessor, Beijing opera, and the male-centered opera culture it represented. Beijing opera has been commonly understood as the standard Chinese opera, and its allmale cast is considered typical of this peculiarly traditional cultural form. Studies of Chinese opera in general and Beijing opera in particular have often overlooked the fact that Beijing opera developed into an all-male theater in order to serve a predominantly male audience only during the second half of the Qing dynasty, and that its homo-social character represented a rupture from the hetero-social opera culture of the seventeenth century. The most popular opera form during the late Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1911) dynasties was a genre known as chuanqi, which literally means “romance,” “legend,” or “bizarre story.” Like some other literary forms of the time, chuanqi celebrated the cult of qing, meaning “feelings” or “passion,” and featured romantic stories about talented scholars and faithful beauties.1 The conquering Qing state, however, deemed the late Ming indulgence in sentimental love stories decadent and a cause of the fall of the Ming house; it therefore imposed strict moral codes on public culture by cracking down on what it considered “obscene theater” (yinxi).2 The Qing state’s effort to purge the public morality of sexually provocative elements won the support of the scholar-official elite and local Confucian gentry , who shared the Manchu criticism of the late Ming cult of qing. Emerging amid these circumstances, Qing opera culture assumed distinctive masculine characteristics that set it apart from the heterosexual Ming theaters that preceded it and the more feminized Republican opera culture that followed it. The Qing state adopted a strict Confucian ideology that defined women’s proper place as within the home, while social customs discouraged women from entering public arenas.3 Women were, by law and custom , largely excluded from public entertainment venues, such as theaters, teahouses, and gambling halls, where opera was staged. Upper-class women could view performances only inside their homes or in the homes of relatives and friends, while lower-class women had access to shows only during local festivals, lineage or religious ceremonies, and community celebrations, when operas were performed in public, free of charge. Even during these public events, women’s attendance was minimal. While household responsibilities and custom required wealthier women to stay at home The Origins of Yue Opera 27 (especially after dark), poorer women had to work long hours to earn a living and hardly had time to remain for...

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