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An actor performs the Mulian Opera in Xinchang county, east China's Zhejiang province, March 14, 2011. It was the first Mulian Opera performance in Xinchang since 1996. The Mulian Opera, is also called "Guixi", meaning "ghost opera" in Chinese, as most of players perform with ghost-like make-ups. As one of the oldest Chinese theatric genres, it refers to the tale about Mulian saving his mother, a major play performed in the opera. As time goes on, the Mulian Opera has become an integration of folk stories, sideshows and acrobatics. However, the opera has been dying since 1980s as fewer people were interested in it. It has been listed as one of the national intangible cultural heritages in 2006 and become revival in recent years as more people found its cultural values. [Xinhua/Wang Dingchang]
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The richness and vitality of Mulian Opera has made it popular for several hundred years. Later, people wrote more theatre plays, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Although Mulian Opera is popular among villagers, it cannot be performed casually. Ni Qun says that Mulian Opera, as a religious drama, can only be performed on certain important occasions.
“People play Mulian Opera to expel the evil spirits when bad things happen to them. Of course, on big occasions, such as the launching of an ancestral temple, people will perform it,” Ni said.
The popularity of Mulian Opera began to decline in the 1920s, and by the end of the 1990s it was practically extinct. It experienced a revival 2006, when it was listed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Currently, Mulian Opera is recognized as the “living fossil of Chinese theater.” It has provided valuable information for studying the origin, evolution and development of Chinese theater. Without scripts or music scores, Mulian Opera has been passed down orally by veteran performers and it still sparkles with wit and vigor.
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