Houhe Opera in Zhuoshui Town can be regarded as a half-play of gongs and drums. The gongs and drums are light and slow, and the joys and sorrows are both rigid and soft. The play is mainly based on singing, and the body movements and facial expressions are unified. Although it is divided into three ways, it still belongs to the category of Pihuang Opera. There is a complete drama performance program. The stage performance space is huge and the time span is infinite. There are many unique vocals, gongs and drums, and jinghu qupai, which are not available in general local operas.
Singing can be divided into three categories: South Road, North Road and Road. There are some tunes in South Road, such as "anti-board", "word", "second-rate", "buckle", "top", "sad son" and "stacked board", which are mostly used in sad dramas. North Road contains Qupai such as "Daoban", "Yi Zi", "Second-rate", "Sanban" and "Xiaoyan". On the road, there are Qupai such as "reverse board", "one word", "second-rate", "four-tone" and "mixed north and south".
The three types of vocals are very rich in feelings, some sonorous, some melodious, some flowing, some tragic and desolate, some humorous, some vulgar, some sobbing, some righteous and stern.
There are 134 kinds of gongs and drums in Zhuoshui Houhe Opera, which can be divided into noisy gongs and drums and performing gongs and drums. The noisy sound of gongs and drums starts from "four doors in" and "big appearance" to the combination of "first bully" and "walking", with "moths in the wind", "bending" garden "and" fluttering "in the middle. The performance of gongs and drums depends on the action and singing of the plot, what tunes and drums are played, and they can be used freely from the introduction of gongs and drums to the opening of gongs and drums.
The accompaniment of Jinghu and erhu depends on the brand of gongs and drums, and whatever brand is played, what tune is played. Daobai is mainly based on local dialects.
The costumes and props of Houhe Opera are basically similar to those of Beijing Opera and other operas. Accompanied by percussion and chords. Percussion instruments include big drums, second drums, side drums, rulers, bells, gongs, big gongs, small gongs, ma gongs, big cymbals, small cymbals and forks. The stringed instruments are Jinghu, Erhu, Sanxian and Yueqin. In the newly opened ancient town, visitors can not only watch the river, watch the drama and enjoy the building, but also sit on the Nanzhu boat carefully built by Tujia craftsmanship and enjoy the duet of the boatmen. On the whole river in Guzhen, * * * has prepared 8 cruise ships, 4 leisure bamboo rafts, 12 ordinary bamboo rafts and 18 rubber boats for tourists, which can accommodate 360 people to play on the river at the same time.