Chinese Peking Opera has "four famous Dans", each with its own characteristics. Mei (Lan Fang) is graceful and luxurious. Shang (Xiao Yun) is heroic. Xun (Huisheng) is feminine and exquisite. One of the most stylistic and distinctive is Cheng (Yan Qiu).
Cheng's style can be summed up, which can be said to be subtle, deep, and relatively internal.
Cheng's play path when he was young was originally very wide. In addition to qingyi plays such as "Fenhe Bay" and "Wu Jia Po", Hua Dan operas can also be sung. Before the liberation, I read an old newspaper, and one of the pages was a Peking Opera advertisement, and Cheng Yanqiu's performance was actually "Noble Concubine Drunk"! What will Cheng Yanqiu's "Drunkenness" look like? It will be different from Lu Yushan and Mei Lanfang. It seems that an actor must have a stage of eclecticism and eclecticism, premature "return", and only identify one genre, and there is no benefit.
Cheng Yanqiu gradually formed his own genre and exerted a great influence in Danjiao, and for a period almost became the "Ten Dans and Nine Journeys".
Cheng Yanqiu's "Spring Fragrance Study"
The characteristics of the Cheng School are not only a thousand turns, a singing cavity with a reverberating intestine, of course, the "Cheng Cavity" is the main feature of the Cheng School, and Cheng pays attention to the characters and pays attention to the artistic conception.
Generally speaking, Cheng's plays do not pursue lively scenes and plot twists and turns. He once only performed one night of "He Hou Scolding Hall", this play has almost no plot, but He Hou scolded Zhao Kuangyi on the Golden Temple, sang a large section of Erhuang, and the whole play was only a few tens of minutes. In a theater as big as the Heavenly Toad Stage, only one play was sung for such a short time, and only Cheng Yanqiu dared to do so.
His new drama "Private Room Play", "Suolin Bag" is a more tortuous plot. The plot of "Wen Ji Gui Han" is very simple, strictly speaking, this is not a drama, it is a poem, a lyric poem. "Zhu Yingtai Anti-Marriage" is a oratorio drama. The water sleeve round field of "Tears of the Barren Mountain" is a Chinese dance. Cheng's water sleeve skills are excellent, but he does not pursue superficial intensity. Instead of "playing" with water sleeves there, but in the round field, the characters are represented, and there is an inner beauty.
Cheng Yanqiu's "Wen Ji Gui Han"
Cheng's script and singing are relatively "cold". "Dong Xieyuan West Chamber" said that "cold and innocent is the most difficult to do", and it is not easy to sing the play "cold" while deeply infecting the audience. Cheng Yanqiu attaches great importance to the "four skills and five laws", but the law is on the outside and the work is on the inside, and Cheng's work is "internal power".
Chinese calligraphy and painting pay attention to "yuan qi introverted", and Cheng Yanqiu is exactly like this. His art is Tai Chi in Chinese opera. Cheng's tai chi is very good, and it is not unreasonable to say that his singing was influenced by tai chi.
Li Shiji was a disciple of Cheng Yanqiu, and some plays were taught by Cheng himself. In addition to her voice and appearance like Cheng, what is more important is that she has a deep understanding of Cheng's aesthetic views, not to follow the trend and get similar to it.
I haven't seen Li Shiji's play for some years, and last year I watched her "Law Field" of "June Snow", which gave me a great shock. Shi Ji not only makes an article on the word "wrong" in "Dou E'e Grievance", not only is she aggrieved and sobbing, but the Dou E she plays is a sad and indignant, asking the sky without words, wanting to cry without tears, which is a strong protest against this world that has no right and wrong and is unfair. I think this is in line with Cheng Yanqiu's portrayal of this character, and it is also in line with the original meaning of Guan Hanqing's tragedy. I feel that the performing arts of Shiji have reached a new level.
Li Shiji's "Suolin Capsule"
Shiji is a very good and strong person in art. She doesn't want to dwell on what she already has. She is constantly exploring, constantly experimenting, constantly pursuing.
For Mr. Cheng's book, in some places, she dared to make partial changes, "Zhu Yingtai Anti-Marriage" was originally relatively thin, Shiji added a large section of anti-erhuang in the "Weeping Grave", touching the past and unable to herself, which made the feelings of "Anti-Marriage" more profound. The "Eight Great Chambers" of "Sacrifice Tower" also moved some places, increasing feelings in the retelling and avoiding the "pouring dung" mentioned in the Peking Opera jargon.
Shiji has made more breakthroughs in singing and singing methods. In the past few years, Shi Ji has tried the true voice ("big voice") in the gentleness of Cheng Cavity, which is more thick and makes people feel more desolate. However, the size of Shiji's voice is well combined, and there is no trace, which does not make people feel "sandwiched". Cheng Pai generally does not take a high cavity. Shi Ji sometimes pulls out a high cavity with a wall in the flat cavity, which is used more in the "crying head", the crane is groaning, has a strong penetrating force, the size of the voice, high and low cavity, alternately use "horizontal into the ridge side into the peak, high and low and near different", so that the cheng cavity is more abundant.
There are mixed reviews of Li Shiji's approach. Those who detract from it say: This is the destruction of tradition and "deceiving the teachers and destroying the ancestors"; those who praise it know that this is creating innovation and making bold breakthroughs, and it is a true and faithful inheritance of the "Cheng School". Some people call Shiji's singing "Xincheng School". Whether it is praise or depreciation, anyway, the "new Chengpai" has become a "fait accompli", which is accepted by many audiences and cannot be erased.
Since Shiji has become a "new Cheng faction", I hope that she will continue to experiment, break the boat, and have no remorse.
(Dacheng Journal, No. 255, 1995)