Huju or "Shanghai opera" is a variety of Chinese opera

Chinese opera

Chinese opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back as far as the third century CE...

 from the area of Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. It is typically sung in the Shanghainese

Shanghainese

Shanghainese , or the Shanghai language , is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Shanghainese, like other Wu dialects, is largely not mutually intelligible with other Chinese varieties...

 dialect.

It is particularly popular in Baihe, the oldest town in the Qingpu District of Shanghai.http://english.eastday.com/eastday/englishedition/Districts/Qingpu/userobject1ai808385.html There are eight to ten huju troupes in the town, and many local residents hire the troupes to perform for weddings and funerals.http://english.shqp.gov.cn/gb/content/2005-06/06/content_65120.htm

Huju is accompanied by an ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments

Traditional Chinese musical instruments

-The Eight Sounds or Eight Tones :The eight categories are: silk, bamboo, wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd and hide. There are other instruments which may not fit these classifications. This is one of the first musical classifications ever.-Silk :...

, including dizi (transverse bamboo flute), erhu

Erhu

The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...

(two-stringed fiddle), pipa

Pipa

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...

(pear-shaped lute), yangqin

Yangqin

The trapezoidal yangqin is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, originally from Middle East and Persia . It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 , but over time the first character changed to 揚 , which means "acclaimed". It is also spelled yang quin or yang ch'in...

(hammered dulcimer), and percussion. The instrumentation and style are closely related to the instrumental genre of Jiangnan sizhu

Jiangnan sizhu

Jiangnan sizhu is a style of traditional Chinese instrumental music from the Jiangnan region of China.-Name:The name Jiangnan sizhu is made up of two parts. Jiangnan is the traditional name for the area south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze river in southern Jiangsu, Shanghai, and northern...

.

The famous Chinese composition "Purple Bamboo Melody" (紫竹调) is adapted from huju.

External links

• Article about huju
• Article about huju
• Article about American singing huju
• Article about the revival of huju

See also

• Yueju opera
  Yueju opera
  Yueju opera is a form of Chinese opera founded around 1906. Over time, it grew in popularity, now second only to the Beijing opera.Yueju was initially performed by men only, but female groups started performing in the style in 1923, and during the 1930–1940s, the form became female-only.- External...
  
  , opera from the Shaoxing
  Shaoxing
  Shaoxing is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. Located on the south bank of the Qiantang River estuary, it borders Ningbo to the east, Taizhou to the southeast, Jinhua to the southwest, and Hangzhou to the west. It was once known as "越"...
  
   region of northeastern Zhejiang
  Zhejiang
  Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
  
  Province