Beijing News (reporter Liu Zhen) invited by the "Meet in Beijing" Olympic Cultural Festival and the 22nd "Meet in Beijing" International Arts Festival, jointly produced by Jiangsu Performing Arts Group and Kunshan Contemporary Kun theater, through the combination of "Kunqu" and "Gu Yanwu" two cultural golden business cards, in order to promote culture and pay tribute to the sages of the original Kunqu opera "Gu Yanwu", staged at the Beijing Tianqiao Theater on January 19.
Stills from the Kun opera "Gu Yanwu". Courtesy of the organizer
Gu Yanwu, a great Confucian of the first generation, was born in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. As the first original Kunqu opera drama in the birthplace of Kunqu opera, Kunqu opera "Gu Yanwu" put forward a new model of "one opera and two versions" at the beginning of its creation, youth inheritance, and "one drama and two versions" with the old leading the new and the old to promote the new, on the one hand, it gathered young masters in domestic opera to create the "famous version" and set a stage benchmark; on the one hand, the outstanding young actors of Kunshan Contemporary Kunqu Theater simultaneously inherited the "youth version" to cultivate and train a new generation of Kunqu practitioners, and also laid the foundation for the regular performance of this play.
The repertoire lineup that appeared in Beijing this time is the fusion of the two versions of "Famous Artists" and "Youth Edition", and it is also the achievement of talent inheritance and training in the birthplace of Kunqu Opera in recent years. Kunshan "plum blossom", national first-class actor Ke Jun starred in Gu Yanwu, performing a game of knife light and blood, showing the loyalty and integrity of the characters. Ke Jun said: "To have the opportunity to meet the soul of Gu Yanwu, a Kunshan native more than 300 years ago, is a blessing for me, a contemporary Kunqu person, because he is not only a cultural symbol of Kunshan, but also a microcosm of the national feelings of Chinese literati." I hope that "Gu Yanwu" can become a classic in the new era and continue to act forever! National first-class actors Zhang Dahuan, Gong Yinlei and Qian Zhenrong helped the team, sharing the stage with cao Zhiwei, Huang Zhuyu and other outstanding young actors and students of Kunshan Contemporary Kunshan Opera, using literary and artistic methods to lead contemporary audiences to find the resonance of "the rise and fall of the world, the responsibility of the puppeteer".
It is understood that since the original Kunqu opera "Gu Yanwu" was created and released in 2018, it has been performed in important festivals such as the 7th China Kunqu Opera Arts Festival, the 12th China Arts Festival, the 12th Xiqu Hundred Opera (Kunshan) Festival, and the 2nd Jiangsu Development Conference, and has carried out national tours and cultural exchanges. Over the past three years, he has performed nearly 50 times, and won the "Five Ones Project" Award for the Construction of Spiritual Civilization in Jiangsu Province, the Wenhua Excellent Repertoire Award in Jiangsu Province, the Zijin Award for Jingkun Art and the Excellent Repertoire Award, the First Prize for Excellent Copyright Works in Jiangsu Province, and the Suzhou Wenhua Honorary Award.
Beijing News reporter Liu Zhen
Edited by Tian Kaini Proofreader Zhao Lin