The Transmission of Yue Opera in Nanjing: Educational Practices and Cultural Sustainability

Abstract

This study examines the transmission mechanisms and cultural sustainability of Yue Opera in the urban setting of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, as it faces challenges in a rapidly globalizing and digitizing world. This study applies an ethnomusicological approach and fieldwork in Nanjing. The author employed several research techniques, including curricular analysis, high-fidelity audio-visual documentation of performance repertoire, and semi-structured interviews with nine purposefully chosen participants. The sustainability of Yue opera in Nanjing is attributed to a balanced synergistic system of three interlocked components: the Jiangsu Provincial Drama School’s targeted vocational training, the Nanjing Yue Opera Troupe’s market-driven creative activity in Poetic Yue Opera, and the Nanjing Yue Opera Museum’s community engagement. Of particular note is the successful regional Zhu School’s closing of the generational gap through aesthetic updating and incorporation of the macro-digital. Modern multimedia, including the content of interactive museum displays and QR codes used to document performance archives, have shifted the art practice of Yue opera from a casually informal oral transmission to a systematized and modern institutional practice that resonates with the younger urban audience. The regional Zhu performing arts in contemporary large cities are likely to survive if the fragmented model of preservation morphs into an integrated model of cross-institutional collaboration. This study demonstrates that to sustain cultural traditions, it is vital to reanimate the sounds and emotions of the art form in contemporary living. This study offers a replicable model for the preservation of regional culture as an active, continually changing identity. To build on these findings, future research must explicitly undertake longitudinal studies to track the long-term career trajectories of drama school graduates and execute comparative cross-regional analyses to test the scalability of this tripartite ecosystem across different regional operatic traditions.