"Tea song floating in all directions, floating on the hearts of people, hey, you are the wind blowing from the mountains, with the earthy fragrance -"
This intelligent and beautiful woman, with a gentle singing voice, seems to have been born for the Huangmei drama; this woman who dares to love and dare to hate, after three times of emotion in her life, finally found a good relationship; this proud woman, who has been popular and purple, has also wandered around, but after death, she was tragically dissected.
In just thirty-eight years, she has left too many excellent works for future generations, and also left people with endless thoughts and reflections.
On April 13, 1930, in Anqing, Anhui Province, a beautiful and cute little elf descended to the world, and her parents named her Yan Hongliu.
No, this little girl with a water spirit has a bad fate.
When she was 4 years old, her mother ran away from home, and she became a child without a mother. Later, due to the turmoil of the times, his father Yan Siming sent his 7-year-old daughter back to his hometown of Luojialing to live with his grandparents.
Fortunately, the rural folk customs are simple, the heavens and the earth are open, and the lively Xiao Hongliu is also carefree. What makes her particularly happy is that the little grandmother can sing a nice tea song. This kind of light and sweet yellow plum minor key made Xiao Hongliu, who had been humming Peking Opera under the influence of his father's ears, suddenly like it, and sang with his voice open all day, and people praised this boy for singing well.
However, my grandfather's feudal thoughts were deeply imprinted, and he often blocked Xiao Hongliu's love of dancing and singing. Soon, Yan Yungao, who sang Huangmei opera, returned to Luojialing to make a living, and at the same time received apprentices to teach art. Xiao Hongliu, who was obsessed with Huangmei opera, often secretly learned to play. At the age of 13, he officially worshiped Yan Yungao as a teacher, learned the single fold in traditional plays such as "Sending Fragrant Tea" and "Spring Fragrant Learning", and began to perform on stage at the age of 14.
In ancient times, the folk divided the jianghu characters into the upper and lower nine streams, and the drama (Youling) was classified as the lower nine streams, which was an unpopular profession, and the Huangmei opera was called "flower drum fornication". Women in such occupations are considered to be abusive and discriminated against.
In the spring of 1945, 15-year-old Yan Hongliu performed for the first time in the Liantan Zhangjia Ancestral Hall in Tongcheng, violating the family rules, and the Yan Ancestral Hall wanted to arrest her and sink her into the pond. With the help of his master, Yan Hongliu fled his family and joined the drama class.
Since then, she has begun a wandering career of learning to play and singing.
The following year, Yan Hongliu entered the Anqing opera class "Republican Class", changed his name to Yan Fengying, and performed "XiaoCidian" and "You Chun", which suddenly caused a sensation in the city.
However, singing allowed her to gain fame and fortune, but it also brought disaster. Soon, Yan Fengying, who had a hard time finding a safe place, had to flee again.
Because she was favored by a local self-defense force captain. Seeing that the troupe was surrounded by soldiers with knives and guns, Yan Fengying, who was helpless, had to tie his hands for the sake of the overall situation of the troupe. However, Yan Fengying has a strong personality since childhood, vowing not to follow his oath, not only pretending to be crazy and selling stupid nonsense all day long, but also hanging himself several times. Eventually found an opportunity to escape.
At the end of 1947, 17-year-old Yan Fengying avoided leaving Nanjing to study Jingkun art and song and dance. When passing through Akiura, he sang the Huangmei opera locally for three months. With her handsome appearance, sweet singing voice and light dance posture, Yan Fengying moved the north and south of the river and became the first signboard in the Huangmei opera art circle around Anqing.
Who knows, the same doom repeats itself. In 1948, Yan Fengying came to Qingyang with the troupe to sing, and was detained and forced to be his concubine by the local bully surnamed Chen. Despite being humiliated and intimidated, Yan Fengying committed suicide by swallowing gold in anger for the sake of jade shattering and not for Waquan. Fortunately, she was rescued and escaped from the tiger-wolf den with the help of a local enlightened gentleman.
Later, she continued to sing with the troupe in the surrounding areas such as Guichi. In late April 1949, the wandering Yan Fengying was rescued by a passing river crossing team. The comrades of the army mobilized her to join the army to do medical work, but she finally stubbornly chose to wander around and sing opera, but she loved Huangmei opera.
Yan Fengying Huangmei opera's singing voice is bright and sweet, with a unique charm, integrating the length of Peking Opera, Yue opera, Shanghai opera and folk songs, and is a family of its own, known as "Yan Pai".
Tian Han, a famous playwright and one of the founders of modern Chinese drama, called her "Mei Lanfang in Huangmei Opera", and the Chinese people called her "a generation of grandmasters" of Huangmei Opera.
After liberation, her love flew with her career. However, compared with the thriving career, this love is too bumpy.
In October 1949, 19-year-old Yan Fengying came from Wuhu to the MGM Ballroom in Nanjing to sell singing and dancing, changing her name to Yan Daifeng. In order to avoid the harassment and pestering of idle people, she committed herself to a timber merchant, and later broke up angrily after learning that the other party had a wife.
Soon, after being introduced, the 20-year-old Yan Fengying met the newly widowed Peking Opera ticket and rich businessman Gan Luzhi. Handsome men and beautiful women, similar interests, the two soon fell in love. Soon, with the consent of his father Gan Gongsan, Gan Luzhi took Yan Fengying back to the Gan family.
Gan Gongsan admired Yan Fengying very much and personally taught her to sing Kunqu opera. During this period, she drew a lot of nutrition from the Kunqu performing arts and played an important role in promoting the development of her future career.
But Yan Fengying was born for the stage, and the Gan family is a warm harbor, but it is also a cage that traps her.
In 1951, the Anqing Qunle Theater (later renamed "Victory Theater"), which was on the verge of closure, asked her to go back to singing. Gan Luzhi is a gentleman, although he is reluctant in his heart, he understands that Yan Fengying, who loves Huangmei opera, has always longed for the stage in her heart, and that is her world.
Yan Fengying, who returned to the stage of Huangmei Opera, was like a fish in the water, and soon became famous. I met the composer Wang Zhaoqian at a theatrical conference.
One is a talented man, and the other is a beautiful and amorous celebrity. The two gradually fell in love, lived together the next year, and gave birth to a son Wang Xiaoya the following year.
Yan Fengying passionately loved and adored Wang Zhaoqian. She once wrote in the prose poem "To My Lover": "People who don't know me see me lighter than paper, only you, don't love these false names." Lover, I often think for myself in the dead of night, and often I don't close my eyes until dawn. I am a person who has nothing to gain, why can I win such love as you? ”
Love should always be equal. Wang Zhaoqian is also in love with Yan Fengying, but this love may be too domineering. Yan Fengying's love for him, which is low to the dust, is doomed to bloom fragrant flowers.
In June 1953, Yan Fengying performed in Nanjing, and Gan Luzhi, as the friendship of the landlord, wrote a letter inviting Yan Fengying and his wife to visit their home during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Because of the past of Yan Gan and Gan, Wang Zhaoqian was reluctant to go. Yan Fengying was grateful for the kindness of the Gan family and went to the appointment despite wang's objections. Who knew that Gan Luzhi, on the way back to send Yan Fengying, met Wang Zhaoqian by the Qinhuai River, and a fierce quarrel occurred between Yan Wang. In the face of Wang Zhaoqian's insults and suspicions, Yan Fengying was so sad and disappointed that he even wanted to jump into the Qinhuai River to commit suicide.
No amount of love can withstand the trampling of dignity. After this paragraph, Yan Fengying, who has a strong personality, broke up with a negative anger. Two months later, Yan Fengying, whose career was just like the day in the sky, went to Nanjing to officially marry Gan Luzhi, a descendant of the capitalists.
Whether it is gambling and repaying favors, or the resurgence of old feelings, coupled with the disparity in the status of the two, their marriage is bound to be criticized by the world. The pressure of the world was enough to overwhelm all the good, and the two had to go to Hefei to live.
Love is magical, and after marriage, both of their careers have gone further. Especially Yan Fengying, humbly learning from the previous generation of artists, learning from traditions, learning from brother dramas, a water sleeve, a body, a singing voice, must be repeatedly deliberated, excellence.
In 1954, she starred in "Tianxian Matching" and won the first prize in the Shanghai East China Opera Festival.
In 1955, the filming of the Huangmei opera film "Tianxian Match" was even more popular throughout the country, forming a huangmei opera fever in Hong Kong and Taiwan for nearly 20 years, and even broadcast to France, Italy, Britain, Finland and other countries.
Since then, Huangmei opera, a small local drama that used to be elegant, has entered the public's field of vision and has become a well-known drama throughout the country.
Later, Gan Luzhi went to Hebei, Shandong and other places to perform, and the couple separated again. In June 1956, the two formally divorced, and the marriage of less than two years ended, leaving countless people sighing.
During this period, choreographer Wang Guanya walked into Yan Fengying's life. The two often read ancient Chinese together, learn Tang poems, talk about performance, and practice singing. Soon, the stage play "Wang Jinfeng" (formerly known as "Breaking through the Storm") won the Outstanding Performance Award at the first provincial drama observation conference, and the two won the first prize for performance and the second prize for directing.
Love meets unexpectedly.
The two married in September 1956 and gave birth to a son, Wang Xiaoying, the following year. They began a harmonious and dependent 13-year marriage.
Yan Fengying's career has once again stepped onto a new level.
In 1959, the filming of the Huangmei opera film "Female Pony" once again triggered a boom at home and abroad.
Career love double harvest, young Yan Fengying climbed to the peak of life. Where did she think that today's fiery cooking oil and flowers are flourishing, which have become the footnotes of her tragic end in the future.
A grain of ash of the times falls on an individual's head and is a mountain. Yan Fengying, who had reached the peak of her life, thought that bad luck was coming towards her.
Although Yan Fengying had joined the party as early as 1960, the drama she performed was advocating "emperors and generals, talented people", and the muddy water poured down, and soon she was beaten into "three high" "black line figures", at most there were 13 "hats", and later was locked up in the "cowshed".
Although she suddenly fell from the clouds to hell, she resisted strongly until 1968.
On April 5, the Red Anhui newspaper published a lengthy editorial, twice naming and criticizing Yan Fengying, a figure in the "black line of literature and art."
The next day, Yan Fengying was interrogated, ordered to confess to the crime of besieging the "revolutionary model play", accused of being a "literary and artistic black line figure", and became a beautiful snake and a Kuomintang agent who propagated feudal (feudalism) capital (capitalism) and repair (revisionism).
Under a high-pressure policy, everyone is at risk. There are those who are proud of their bones, and there are those who protect themselves, but it is not uncommon for those who report and expose others and seek self-protection or even meritorious service.
More people are constantly self-critical. It's a fear that goes deep into the bone marrow, a self-censorship that goes deep into the bone marrow. But after a long period of self-censorship, perversion will become the norm.
Perhaps unable to see where the light was, or perhaps humiliated, on the night of April 7, 1968, a month and 16 days before his 38th birthday, Yan Fengying swallowed a hundred sleeping pills with endless regret and despair.
But her beloved husband and a pair of children are all worries that she can't leave behind, and Yan Fengying cried bitterly after taking poison. Wang Guanya, who was awakened by the crying, saw the empty medicine bottle, while massaging her abdomen, while asking her eldest son Wang Xiaoya to rush downstairs to find a doctor from the Cultural Affairs Bureau to rescue her. However, the blood pressure is too low, and it must be rushed to the hospital for rescue.
At that time, only the military hospital was still operating normally, and In order to find an ambulance to be sent to the military hospital, Wang Guanya went to liu Wanquan, a military representative, to apply. However, Liu Wanquan turned on the bedside criticism and interrogation mode, pointing at Yan Fengying and scolding: "What's wrong with you?" You pretend to be sick! You want to cut yourself off from the people! "You'll act, don't act now!"
Wang Guanya pleaded bitterly, but what he got was: "If you don't save her, you must let her confess first", and later saw Yan Fengying's drug seizures and was allowed to be sent to the hospital. However, the first hospital refused to accept it, and the second hospital reluctantly accepted it, but said that it would wait for the leaders to meet to study the decision. It wasn't until she stopped breathing that the "leaders" stopped arguing.
In China, there is a saying that "the dead are great, and those who are buried are safe." "When people die, it's all over, right?" Less than an hour after Yan Fengying's death, Liu Wanquan, a military representative, ordered someone to strip her body in public, called a doctor, and demanded that the throat be cut open and the internal organs dug out. Forced by obscenity, the doctor had to use a small surgical axe to cut from the ingestion, rib by rib. However, after pulling out the internal organs, only sleeping pills were found.
However, Liu Wanquan was still not dead hearted, and ordered to continue to "dig deep" until the pubic bone was split and the bladder ruptured urine squirted out. Looking at the mutilated corpse, Liu Wanquan said: "Yan Fengying, I have not seen your play, nor have I seen your movie, today I saw your original form!" ”
Yan Geling, who was 9 years old at the time, witnessed Yan Fengying's death.
She said that I can always recall Yan Fengying's suicide. She was unconscious, she was naked, naked, her body full of tubes, needles, catheters, like a specimen nailed to a hospital bed.
She clearly remembered a detail.
At that time, in full view of everyone, Yan Fengying was naked, and an electrician deliberately dropped the cigarette butt. The children also ran to watch. She said, watching "a very tall and slender man cramp into a very short one." ”
"Huang Mei is good to hear the sweet sound of the countryside, and you are still singing affectionately in heaven and on earth."
Now that the mountains and wild winds have dispersed and the Si people have gone, no amount of nostalgia and grief can only appeal to the pen, but I hope that the "Huangmei Empress" will dissolve the corpse from suffering and the heavens and the earth will be transformed into a woman.
Attached relevant information:
On May 23, 1978, the Anhui Provincial Party Committee rehabilitated Yan Fengying, and on August 21, the Anhui Provincial Bureau of Culture held a ceremony to lay yan Fengying's ashes.
In 2000, Luoling Town, Yixiu District, Anqing City, raised 800,000 yuan for the restoration of Yan Fengying's former residence and road construction. On April 29, 2002, Yan Fengying's former residence was officially opened to the public.