Musical Theatre of the Pear Orchard

A Brief Sketch

The Liyuan or Pear Orchard Opera originated from the song-and-dance music of the “Pear Orchard Studio” which flourished during the Tang dynasty when it was already considered a deeply antique tradition of Qingyue, “Qing [mode] Music” of which the emperor Xuanzong (Tang Minghuang, r. 712-756 CE)  had been passionately fond.  “This mode evolved from the first of nine departments of national music current in the Sui and Tang dynasties.  The emperor Xuanzong composed a new piece which he named “Regulation Mode of Dao Principles” and which he proceeded to supervise personally, instructing performers at the Pear Orchard [Theatre] within the Palace.  For this reason the performers of the Regulation Mode of Qing Music used to be called “The Emperor’s Pupils of the Pear Orchard”.

Pear Orchard pieces include “Girl Pupils’ Dance,” and for boys the “Children Band’s Dance.”  These pieces set their pitch according to the transverse flute and are therefore two notes higher than the basic Qing mode, with a brilliant high tone suitable for young children’s delicate and untrained voices.  The “Regulation Mode of the Qing Music” itself was pitched by the vertical flute which, with its soft and pliant melodious quality, is suited for the resonant emotions of the mature voice.  Its usage and regulations survive today in Nankuan music as well as in Pear Orchard pieces.

Since the Northern Song when the Court disbanded this musical theatre studio system, performers of Pear Orchard music came to be either kept in private officials’ homes as entertainers, or became wandering street minstrels, and the genre of Pear Orchard dramas began to spread beyond palace grounds, reaching both intelligentsia and plebeians, spurring a new and widespread surge of interest.  When imperial relatives of the Southern Song Court moved their house to Quanzhou, Pear Orchard drama moved with them and found new roots in the south.  By the Ming, it had spread among aristocracy, literati, officials, and plebeians alike.

During the Qing dynasty troupes from Quanzhou’s Pear Orchard came often to perform in various areas of Taiwan, and were profoundly loved by the Taiwanese who shared with them the same language, the same ethnicity and dialect.  During the Japanese occupation (1895 - 1945), local Taiwan artists began to imitate Pear Orchard pieces, adding to the genre cymbals and drums, also the more active martial scenes significantly altering altered pieces or creating new works, winning great popularity.  Because the titles they used were all culled from Nankuan music, the pieces were commonly called Nankuan Opera, or Gaojiaxi (“Tall Armour Shows”), replacing to this day the original name of Pear Orchard Drama.

 In the 1970s, famed Oxford sinologist Piet ven der Loon (then of Cambridge), discovered an edition of southern musical drama that had been printed during the Jiajing era (1522-67) and entitled “Reprint Edition of Mixed Theatre Genres of Chaozhou and Quanzhou, Plus poems, lyrics and northern tunes, Together with the Script of the play Record of the Lychee Mirror”.  This was the script of the Pear Orchard drama “Lady Chen San Wuniang” that had survived into the present.  Nowadays Pear Orchard pieces have been elevated to be the most ancient genre in China’s drama history, and have aroused international scholarly interest.  Work is now proceeding in earnest to sort and order all materials related to the Pear Orchard genre.