The Yue Opera Preservation Center of Tonglu County, Zhejiang Launches a Yue Opera Poem Chant-Fuchun

Recently, the Yue Opera Preservation Center of Tonglu County, Hangzhou, China combined Yue Opera and Tonglu poetry to produce a short video named Fuchun, a poem chant sung in the gentle rhyme of Yue Opera. The chant shows the beauty of mountains and waters in Fuchunjiang Town, Tonglu through the gentle voice and rhythm of Yue Opera, allowing the audience to travel through space and time and immerse themselves in the mountains and waters of Fuchunjiang Town .

Screenshot of the Short Video Cover of Fuchun 

Screenshot from Short Video Fuchun

Tonglu Ancient Poetry Collection, which was first published in 2020, contains 7,400 poems admiring Tonglu of more than 1,900 poets/Ci poets from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Over a thousand poets have been to this county, including Xie Lingyun, Li Bai, Du Mu, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, Bai Juyi, Meng Jiao and Su Shi, leaving numerous poems chanting the natural landscape and cultural relics of Tonglu.

Tonglu, the birthplace of Yue Opera, is home to five winners of the China Theatre Plum Blossom Award, namely Shan Yangping, Xie Qunying, Chen Xiaohong, Wang Hangjuan and Chen Xueping. A series of stunning dramas including Rain on the Fuchun River Upper Reaches, Moon in the Spring River and Encounter by the Spring River, have earned great fame for the Yue Opera in Tonglu.  

The Yue Opera Preservation Center of Tonglu County will further carry out Yue Opera poem chants. Through combining the culture of Song Dynasty, it will explore, integrate and activate Yue Opera and ancient poetry, the two kinds of national cultural quintessence, to display Tonglu's "Poetry Road Culture" and build a picturesque Tonglu. Meanwhile, the center will bring Yue Opera poem chants into campuses so as to hand down the art of Yue Opera and promote traditional culture, further cultivating children's interest in learning ancient poetry and Yue Opera and advancing the preservation and development of traditional culture. (Text/photo by Wang Lilin and Wang Jie)