Niuwang temple stage

Niuwang temple stage is a national key cultural relic protection unit, located in Weicun Niuwang temple, 25 kilometers northwest of Linfen City. Built in 1293, it is the oldest stage in China. The stage is in the form of a music tower. It is a wooden pavilion stage. The plane is square, with walls on three sides, and the front is the entrance of the stage. The architectural structure of the stage is a "well" shaped frame with a single eaves at the top and a cross at the top. It is a valuable material for studying the history of Chinese drama. Shanxi opera has a long history, especially in southern Shanxi, which is one of the birthplaces of Chinese opera, so people call Shanxi "the cradle of Chinese opera". There are 54 kinds of local operas in Shanxi, ranking first in China. Therefore, as an important symbol of the development of Chinese opera, there are many theatres. According to statistics, there are 2886 ancient theatres preserved in Shanxi, which are distributed almost all over Shanxi, among which 6 are the oldest in Yuan Dynasty.

Niuwang temple stage

Niuwang temple stage is located in Weicun, Weicun Town, Yaodu District, Linfen City. It is also called Wulou. It was built in 1283, the 20th year of the Yuan Dynasty. It was damaged by the great earthquake in Pingyang area in 1303, the seventh year of Dade. It was repaired in 1321, the first year of Zhi. It was repaired repeatedly in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The stage of Niuwang temple adopts the form of music tower, which is a wooden pavilion stage. The plane is square, with three walls, and the front is the entrance of the stage. There is no difference between the front and the back. The old system of Yueting in song and Jin Dynasties is still preserved. The platform is 1 meter high, 7.45 meters wide and 7.55 meters deep. The structure of the building is a "well" shaped frame, and there are two forms of single eaves top and cross top.

Niuwang temple stage is the earliest existing wooden structure stage in China. It is also a valuable material for studying the development history of Chinese drama. It is a national key cultural relic protection unit.

The Northern Song Dynasty

Shanxi is "the cradle of Chinese opera". Since the emergence of drama in Han Dynasty, to the Northern Song Dynasty, all kinds of dramas such as farce, shadow play, song and dance play, Baixi, skill play and so on were active in Shanxi. In the Yuan Dynasty, the art of traditional Chinese opera became more and more prosperous, and Shanxi became the center of traditional Chinese opera. It is also because of the long history of traditional opera, Shanxi's local stage all over the countryside.

Only in terms of Yuan Dynasty stage, the only six Yuan Dynasty stage in China are located in southern Shanxi. Such as Linfen Wei Village Niuwang temple stage (AD 1283), Dongyang village stage (AD 1345), Yicheng County Wuchi village qiaoze Temple stage and so on. According to the records of Taizong Ji in the history of Yuan Dynasty, Shanxi Tongzhi and Puzhou Fu Zhi, there were theatres in almost every village in southern Shanxi at that time, which shows how developed Shanxi opera art was in the Yuan Dynasty.

Shanxi opera has a long history, especially in southern Shanxi, which is one of the birthplaces of Chinese opera. There are 54 kinds of local opera in Shanxi, ranking first in China. Therefore, as an important symbol of the development of Chinese opera, there are many theatres. According to statistics, there are 2886 ancient theatres preserved in Shanxi, which are distributed almost all over Shanxi, among which 6 are the oldest in Yuan Dynasty.

Historical evolution

The stage was built in 1283, the 20th year of the Yuan Dynasty. On the left front corner column of the stage is engraved "Du Xiu, a stone man from Shiquan in Nanshi, Guiwei County, the 20th year of the Yuan Dynasty of Mengda", and on the front corner column is engraved "nine Hitachi stone at the end of the autumn moon of Mengyou County, the first year of the Zhizhi period of Weida Yuan Dynasty".

In 1303, the Pingyang earthquake caused a serious collapse of the stage.

It was rebuilt in 1321, the first year of the reign of emperor Zhi. It is the earliest ancient stage with exact date found in China.

In 1978, Shanxi Institute of ancient architecture repaired it to show its original style.

In 1957, the stage was listed as a provincial cultural relic protection unit in Shanxi Province.

On November 20, 1996, it was announced as the fourth batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council.

Unique style

Niuwang temple stage adopts the form of music tower, which is a wooden pavilion stage. The plane is square, with walls built at the back and one-third of the back half on both sides. The front is the entrance of the stage, and there is no difference between the front and the back. The overall structure adopts a large square structure, which completely follows the unique style of the stage in the song and Jin Dynasties. The stage is open on three sides, and the audience can watch from both sides of the front. This feature of Niuwang temple stage is similar to the modern T-shaped stage.

Niuwang temple stage is 1 meter high, 7.45 meters wide in front of the stage and 7.55 meters deep. The building structure is a "well" shaped frame, and the top is a single eaves cross Xieshan gray tile roof. There are four corner pillars on the base of the platform, and the stone pillars on the front desk are engraved with the words "Mengda Yuanguo Zhiyuan 20years old Cigui Weiji Chunli". It is precisely because of this line that their value is incalculable.

Solid wood structure

From the perspective of the wood structure of Niuwang temple stage, most of the four corner pillars are set with sparrows to replace the Big Dipper, and four large architraves are set on the big dipper to form a huge box. Below the box is the performance area with large space, and above it bears the weight of the whole roof. This kind of architectural form of the forehead square is very beneficial to the stage with large space.

From the inside of the stage, the caisson at the top is made of wood. The top looks like a little eight trigrams. The two upper layers are octagonal from big to small. At the bottom layer, they return to the quadrangle. The whole stage is made of wood mortise and tenon without a nail.

On the stage of Niuwang temple, an auxiliary column is set at the rear third of both sides, and a gable is built behind the column to connect with the back wall. An account can be set between the two auxiliary columns to divide the stage into two parts: the front stage and the back stage. There are no Gables on both sides of the front stage, which can be viewed from three sides.

Research value

In the Yuan Dynasty, most of the theatres had a wide surface, and only columns appeared on both sides of the entrance. In order to increase the width of the viewing angle, the gables on both sides were only 1 / 3 or 1 / 4 of the length. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most of the theatres were three rooms wide, with four columns at the entrance of the stage.

The use of the large square structure of the stage increased the space of the entrance, which was incomparable with that of the stage in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the stage architecture pursued too much the magnificence and decoration of the building facade, but lacked special design for the function of opera performance.

Historical records

According to historical records, on the sixth day of April in the 34th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8 occurred in Pingyang Prefecture. At that time, the Niuwang temple in Weicun village was razed to the ground. Only the stage of Niuwang temple was well preserved, and only a few damaged parts were repaired after the earthquake. This is related to the unique construction technology of Niuwang temple stage.

Secondly, another characteristic of northern architecture in Yuan Dynasty is that the columns are not all vertical, but all with certain side angles, which makes use of the balance principle of mechanics to a certain extent. At the same time, it has something to do with the fact that the stage is made of wood and light.

Address: Niuwang temple, Weicun village, Linfen County, Linfen City

Longitude: 111.499104

Latitude: 36.238476

Tel: 0357-2015547

Ticket information: Free

Chinese PinYin : Niu Wang Miao Xi Tai