In traditional opera, the dress of any character has rules, and follows the principle of "rather wear than wear mistakes", there is no distinction between dynasties and regions, nor time or season. This is a set of artistic vocabulary gradually accumulated in hundreds of years of performance practice, which is understood and accepted by the audience, and can produce a sense of artistic reality.
Frequent opera performance activities play an important role in social development, and also make the opera stage art continue to improve. The development of opera stage art has formed a complete performance system so far, from the performance venue to the stage installation and character dress, it has reached maturity and perfection, and it is a clear and exaggerated performance method to highlight the character modeling. The character modeling is expressed in the posture of dance, the costume is the dance dress, the end is the dance equipment, and the stage is the dance hall. It is "to sing with sound, to dance without moving." ”
Clothing boxes are the proprietary equipment for traditional opera to place costumes, helmets, boots and shoes, masonry, knives and guns, etc. The original clothes box was not very standardized, and with the passage of time, the development of opera art, the clothes box system gradually formed. The "Yangzhou Painting Record" once recorded the material about the clothes box, and described the general situation of the Kunqu opera class in Yangzhou: "The drama is called the head of the line. The head of the line is divided into four boxes: clothes, helmets, miscellaneous, and handles. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the line head not only referred to the costumes, but also included the end of all performances, of which the coat box was divided into "coat box" and "cloth box". According to the characteristics of the costume, the "coat box" is divided into "literary dress", "martial dress" and "female dress". Helmet boxes are also divided into "literary dress", "martial dress" and "female dress". It can be seen that by the Ming Dynasty, opera performance groups already had a relatively complete clothing box system.
By the first half of the 20th century, with the stereotyping of traditional opera, the clothing box system was also fixed. In addition to the exclusive costumes (that is, private houses) produced by the main actors of the troupe due to their specific conditions, performance needs, technical styles, etc., the costume box equipment of the troupe forms a set of "official boxes" (that is, the shared row head), which generally includes all the character costumes of the opera performance, which is general, so it is also called "full box".
The whole box is divided into coat box, two clothes box, three clothes box, helmet box, boot box, and handle box. The coat box has two upper boxes and two lower boxes, respectively, the emperor, ordinary civil officials, scholars, and women's clothing of corresponding status. From the characteristic point of view, the clothing in the coat box is roughly with water sleeves, while the clothes and pants and flag suits have no water sleeves, and are placed in the coat box as usual. All garments must be placed in the box in a certain order and according to the standard folding method. For example, the red python worn by "Jiaguan" and the green python worn by "Fortuna" in the first box should be placed in front, and the following are yellow, white, black and so on. The next box is the first to put rich clothes and old fighting clothes, reflecting the simple democratic ideas of the artists in the old era. In the coat box are: python, official clothes, pleats, drapes, kaisers, costumes, skirts, pants, jackets, dress pants, cloaks, bag coats, legal clothes, qipao, pythons, palace clothes, Caidan gowns, waist bags (some put them in the three clothes box), shoulders and so on. The second coat box is also divided into the upper first box and the lower first box. The upper first box is mainly based on lean and arrow clothes, and the rest are placed in the lower first box, mainly in clothing without water sleeves, including: leaning, arrow clothes, horse coats, hugging clothes and hugging pants, servant clothes, pawns, dragon suits, eunuch clothes, green robes, sin clothes, monk vests, executioner hand clothes, fish, mussels, shrimp, crabs, gods and other special clothes. The three-garment box is the bottom of the bottom and color pants worn by the actor, and the appendages include collar protection, fat jacket, water jacket, small belt bag, belt, waist towel and so on.
There are certain rules for the use of costumes, such as pythons worn by civil officials when they are in the court, and drapes when they are usually security councillors, and pleats when they are idle. Military attaches wear pythons for military parades, pythons for large ceremonies, open-ended knives for office, and pleats for family banquets or casual occasions. Samurai wear dressing pants. The most important are roughly the above. The rules on the color of the costume are more stringent, divided into ten pythons, ten leanings, five colors, five colors. Red, green, yellow, white, black, positive five colors, purple, pink, blue, lake, daisy, inter-five colors. For example, upright people wear red, virtuous people wear green, emperors wear yellow, rough people wear black, young people wear white, and the rest of the various inter-color colors are flexibly chosen. There are also two kinds of apricot yellow and fragrant colors, which are worn by the elderly and old heroes and princes. As for what women wear, in addition to pythons, draperies, and pleats, there is only one more palace coat, and the lower body is tied with a skirt. The first item of the line seems to be very diverse, but in fact it is very simple in principle. Although there are many names in the other categories, they are all changed from these types, and the names are slightly different.
The helmet box places the various helmets worn by the characters, which are divided into crowns, helmets, hats, scarves, etc., and the texture is divided into hard and soft tires. The crown is the top hat of the emperor and the nobles; the helmet is worn by the military personnel; the scarf is mostly software, which belongs to casual clothes; the hat is the most miscellaneous, from the imperial hat to the straw hat, there are hard and soft, and there are many names. The crown of opera reflects the hierarchy, secularity and fashion of China's feudal society for two thousand years. The crown hats worn by various upper-class figures on the opera stage are usually graded in the style of the high and low wings of the hats. The style of the wings is basically divided into three categories, namely up, straight, and down, which is one of the obvious signs that distinguish the identity of the character. The upward one is called chaotian wing, which is worn by the emperor and high-ranking courtiers. In general, the wings of the hat worn by civilian officials are relatively straight, but the sable worn by the prime minister is an exception, and its hat wings are straight and long to distinguish other officials. Other non-official literati wore various hats, all of which used downward wings or streamers, and there was a saying that "the fluttering scarf is elegant and elegant, and the square scarf is old and heavy". The poor and the poor wear a scarf. The yarn hats worn by officials can be divided into square winged yarn hats, pointed winged yarn hats, round winged yarn hats, etc. These various styles of crown scarves reflect the styling characteristics of different identities and personalities of ancient Chinese society on the opera stage.
Boot box, boots and shoes have high tops and low tops, the difference between thick soles and thin soles. Those who should wear boots cannot wear shoes, and those who should wear thick soles cannot change thin soles, which is also a customary wearing method formed by the clothing and crown system since ancient times. The sub-box is placed in various knives, guns, handles, etc. in the repertoire. The various opera genres are similar in the clothing box system, and they are not exactly the same in terms of placing costumes, but the establishment of the clothing box system is a common feature of the traditional Chinese opera foot color wearing.
For opera actors, costume management is too important, as indispensable as the violinist, the band, a good dress master, neat techniques, to the actors to wear comfortably and regularly, clothes folds are not, do not delay time, the effect on stage is good. For some old plays that are not often performed, what the characters should wear and wear, the actors may not necessarily understand, nor do they care, which all depends on the costume management.
As an organic part of xiqu art, Xiqu stage art fully demonstrates the characteristics of Chinese opera art, and is highly summarized and synthesized. Through the form of performance, it reflects the principle of "beauty" and meets the needs of audiences of different classes in different time and space backgrounds to enjoy the performance in various forms.
Backstage is an important location for actors to dress up, generally adapted to local conditions. The coliseum in good condition, the dressing mirror in the backstage powder room, the pool, etc. are all available. Before the performance, the stage team staff arrived early and began their work in an orderly manner. The makeup team prepares various supplies for the raw, dan, net, and ugly lines of foot color combing and wrapping hair in the opera performance. The clothes box is managed by the costume group under the stage team, and the costumes to be worn by the entire actors are ironed and flattened before the performance, hung up in accordance with the order of stage, the boots, shoes and pants are placed neatly, the members of the stage team are responsible for their own responsibilities, and the whole backstage is busy and not chaotic, tense and orderly.
Opera character modeling, like opera performances and music, also has many programs. In terms of makeup, whether it is raw, dan, net, or ugly, there are their own basic spectra, and there are certain rules for wearing clothing. These programs are the result of artistic and standardizing the costumes of characters in life. In the long-term accumulation process, they have reached various tacit understandings with the audience. For example, if the audience sees a figure wearing an imperial hat and a yellow python on the stage, he knows that he is an emperor; when he sees a person wearing a sable and a python robe, he knows that he is a minister; when he sees a person wearing a hood and a cloak, he understands that he is on the way; and when he sees another person with a belt wrapped around his head and a skirt tied around his waist, he realizes that he is sick. Coupled with the various portrayals on makeup, as soon as the characters in the play appear, the audience can have a preliminary concept of the age, gender, social status, living conditions and character of the character. This is a set of conventional art vocabulary, and artists understand the magic of this modeling program, so "it is better to wear it than to wear it wrong".
Source: China Culture Daily
EDIT: Mingming
Review: Yang Yao
Final Judge: Wang Mei