"Spoken Drama Plus Singing" (Huaju Jia Chang): A Functional Music-Dramatic Form in the Early Exploration of Chinese New Opera — Centered on Nie Er's Practice
"Spoken Drama Plus Singing" (Huaju Jia Chang): A Functional Music-Dramatic Form in the Early Exploration of Chinese New Opera — Centered on Nie Er's Practice

Summary/Abstract: "Spoken drama plus singing" (huaju jia chang) is a functional music-dramatic form that emerged during the exploration of Chinese new opera in the 1930s. Its formation is connected to multiple artistic resources, including early civilized new drama, "new drama plus singing," modern spoken drama, mass songs, Western Singspiel, and operetta, as well as to the national crisis, left-wing literary and artistic practice, and the demands of mass communication. As a hybrid stage form that employs spoken drama as its narrative core and utilizes songs to condense emotion, shape collective identity, and facilitate dissemination, "spoken drama plus singing" addressed the complex relationship between realistic expression, audience reception, and stage communication. Nie Er's significance within this genre lies in his transformation of mass song experience, labor rhythms, unison singing forms, and musical leitmotifs into methods of organizing stage music, thereby granting songs a relatively clear dramatic function within the dramatic structure. This paper analyzes the form from the perspectives of its generative context, the relationship between speech and song, musical function, the transformation of national musical resources, and generic boundaries.

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