We can often see that the same repertoire, the same roles, different opera actors in the stage performance of the gap is always obvious. There are many reasons for this, including the depth and shallowness of the degree of cognition of life feelings due to differences in personal life experience, the disparity in expression ability and aesthetic taste due to differences in personality and hobbies, and the difference in personal temperament and thinking type (logical thinking type or image thinking type) and therefore high and low in artistic creation such as speculative methods and imagination. In the final analysis, it is the difference in personal artistic accomplishment.
There are three main aspects of the artistic cultivation of opera actors, ideological character cultivation, cultural cultivation and theoretical cultivation of their own profession, which are the decisive factors that constitute the artistic style of actors. Artistic accomplishment determines the level of the actor's performance, although it is a thing that cannot be touched, but it is reflected on the stage so that the audience can feel it.
The reason why Huangmei's play "Tianxian Matching" is well-known is because Yan Fengying and Wang Shaofang, two artistic masters, have integrated their comprehensive artistic qualities into superb performance and singing, making the love story of the Seven Fairies and Dong Yong a classic. In terms of character shaping, the two art masters not only start from the normal life of ordinary people, capture the details of life, in the performance program, the two art masters are drawing on the stage performances of Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera, thus enriching and perfecting the creation of the Seven Fairies and Dong Yong, from their performances, we clearly feel the character outlook and spiritual realm of the character image, the mystery of which lies in the accumulation of the art masters' usual qualities for themselves, deepening the touching power of the image, which contains the master's excellent insight and unique understanding. As well as the emotions that their own character sentiments pin on the characters, they play what the people think in their hearts and serve the spiritual needs of the people. The seven fairies and Dong Yong they play, no matter how many times they act, each time flashes the re-creation of art, so "Heavenly Immortals", seven fairies and Dong Yong, has become an eternal Huangmei opera classic.
Sentiment is a person's noble emotional expression. The cultivation of actors is, first of all, the cultivation of establishing sentiments. As a member of society, actors should pour their emotions into the feelings of the country, the nation, and the people, so loving the country, loving the nation, and loving the people is the noble emotion that opera actors must first cultivate. The famous dramatist Zhang Geng once said, "All artists cannot create works of art indifferently, and so can actors." If the actor does not have the right love-hate attitude in his heart, he cannot perform a shocking and good play. This is also the professional ethics of opera actors, the love of the people, the hatred of the people, it will be consistent with the pulse of the times, and in their own stage image creation, they can directly and clearly reflect the spirit of the times. Artists throughout the ages have hardly been art for art's sake, but have pinned their noble emotions on their works. The Yuan Dynasty opera actor Zhu Shuxiu performed with great courage the great dramatist Guan Hanqing's "Dou E'e Grievances" and sang the suffering of the people. Before and after the "918 Incident," Mei Lanfang choreographed plays showing patriotism and resistance to tyranny, such as "Mulan Joining the Army," "Resisting The Golden Soldier," and "Life and Death Hate," in order to inspire the people's patriotic anti-Japanese fighting spirit. Cheng Yanqiu choreographed "Spring Dream" during the warlord melee, condemning the disaster brought to the people by the perverse actions of the feudal warlords in the form of opera, showing an artist's strong sense of social responsibility.
Interest is a person's temperament and interest, and can also be seen as a person's style, but in the final analysis, there are no more than two types, one is noble and meaningful, and the other is vulgar and meaningless. The four famous dans of "Mei Shang Cheng Xun", they all have their own classics and have become masters of Chinese opera art. The reason for this is the high style of their works brought about by their own erotic cultivation. They regard the art of traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting as a necessary lesson for the cultivation of their own interests, and look for similarities with being a person and acting. In their surviving calligraphy and painting works, we can see and feel at a glance that the masters' calligraphy and painting attainments have a considerable artistic standard, appreciate the exquisite skills of their calligraphy and painting works, and let future generations deeply appreciate and feel what is a master of art and why they can become masters. There are also many elders in the opera industry, who understand the complementary and mutually causal relationship between erotic cultivation and artistic literacy. Similarly, a person's interest cultivation also has a subtle relationship with his social interaction, and the same is true for opera actors. "Talking and laughing has a great confucianism, and there is no white ding" is worthy of our deep consideration. The spiritual essence of these two sentences does not mean that "white dings" cannot communicate without culture, but that a person, especially those engaged in cultural and artistic undertakings, should have a choice in social travel, make more friends with like-minded people in their careers, learn from each other, complement each other, and cultivate each other for their own growth. In the exchange and communication with each other, we subtly enhance our ideological character and cultural accomplishment. Opera actors, especially young actors, if they want to pursue something artistically, they must strictly discipline themselves in their daily lives, pay attention to the cultivation of their own tastes, and lay a solid and beneficial foundation for their stage art creation. I think that my artistically ambitious peers can cultivate these as a kind of professional interest.
Opera is the art of image thinking, so life is the basis of creation. Pay attention to the accumulation of life, improve the ability to recognize life, strengthen research, analyze life phenomena, be a person with a heart for life, absorb image cells, enhance the ability to think critically, and take the accumulation of life knowledge as the cultivation of literary and artistic creation.
The late Wang Benyin (stage name "Xiao ZhangSuo"), a famous Lu opera performance artist, was good at performing the good Lu opera "Asking for Money". In the play, he portrays a poor and pedantic and sympathetic Mr. Teaching, and the reason why the play is still loved and regarded as a classic lies in the singing and performance of the old man in the play. Wang Benyin transformed the essence he extracted from daily life into exaggerated, slow, sour, and crepe crepe stage language actions, portraying the image of an honest and poor old man who likes to bite and chew words vividly, especially the Hefei dialect quip "Ga-he-heh, teeth collapse in half" sung in the play, very rich regional characteristics of the drama and the humorous color of life, Wang Benyin pays attention to observing everything in daily life, paying attention to collecting models of all images, Accumulated over the years, it has formed its own unique stage art style, and when it enters the stage image creation, it can accumulate thick and thin hair, touch the bypass, combine the character personality to play the play, and act more profoundly. As can be seen from the above examples, all accomplished opera performance artists regard how to observe life, study life, and understand the essence of life as an important part of their artistic literacy.
Whether the stage art image created by the actors can reach the height of "grid", in fact, cultural cultivation plays a leading role. Cultural cultivation does not only refer to the cultivation of words in a broad sense, but also includes the cultivation of cultural knowledge in all aspects. It requires every lyric of the actor and every body movement to be able to speak the basis of reason, both to know what it is and why it is so. Excellent actors can always elevate their artistic creation practice into theory and guide the improvement of their own performing arts standards, which requires a wide range of comprehensive cultural knowledge, such as history, literature, music, fine arts, etc., all knowledge related to opera performance, turn it into the creative nourishment of opera performance, penetrate into the role, and have an effect on the artistic image taste they have created. Whether the character image created by opera actors on the stage can reflect the people's aesthetic ideals is related to the aesthetic psychology of opera actors. In order to make the character image they have created reach the height of ideological art and have aesthetic value, only by constantly absorbing all kinds of knowledge, so as to form the taste of art, form their own stage temperament, and this temperament will never fade in performance, with the age of the actor, the richness of experience and more and more profound, dignified.
Opera performance has its objective aesthetic standards, the level of character image shaping, based on self-aesthetic and audience aesthetics, not conventional, with a unique aesthetic personality of the stage art image, is the ultimate goal of opera performance. And all this depends on the comprehensive artistic accomplishment of the actors.
Quoting three sentences from Wang Guowei's "Words and Sayings on Earth", as my understanding of the comprehensive artistic accomplishment of opera actors: "Last night the west wind withered the green trees, went up to the tall building alone, and looked at the end of the world", this is a realm, standing tall can see far, this "high" is the double height of the artist's ideal ambition and moral character; "the belt is gradually widened and there is no regret, and the people are haggard for Yi Que" is the second realm, "Yi" is the opera performance art we are engaged in, not only to stand on the ideal height, but also to pay hard work and unswerving spirit;" The crowd looked for him a thousand times, and suddenly looked back, but the man was in the middle of the light, "It is the third realm, which is the inevitable result of the first two sentences, that is, the realm." The law of the development of things is like this, with great ambition to explore up and down, it will come to fruition until it reaches the supreme realm of the "kingdom of freedom".
Every young actor engaged in opera performance has his own pursuit and dream, and on the road of pursuit and dream, he turns cultivation into energy and moves towards his due artistic height.
Source: China Art News
Author: Chen Dan Editor: Ming Ming
Review: Yan Wei Final: Wang Mei