Acting in sorrow and joy, there is no predecessor in the contemporary era;
Looking at the praise and criticism, there are often people in the audience.
On January 20, 2022, on the occasion of the upcoming Spring Festival of Nongyin, the National Museum of China, mei lanfang memorial hall and taizhou municipal people's government, the "Mei Lanfang Hua - Mei Lanfang Art Life Exhibition" was exhibited to the public.
Poster design: Shangguan Tianmeng
Based on the relevant precious cultural relics and documents showing Mei Lanfang's artistic life, the exhibition allows the audience to experience the personal charm and moral demeanor of a generation of art masters at close range by combing through Mei Lanfang's artistic creations in different historical periods, and tasting the life feelings and spiritual strength contained in Mei Pai Peking Opera art works.
Mei Lanfang, whose ancestral home is Taizhou, was born in Beijing in 1894. He came from a famous family, learned from his family, and turned to many teachers, and was a pioneer of the emerging Danxing school in the early 20th century. Mei Lanfang's performance style is both rigorous and exquisite and beautiful, seemingly full of essence, but it contains a thousand brilliant ways: the singing song is exquisite, pure and full; the reading white is gentle and rounded, rigid and edgeless; the appearance is eclectic, to the wu cunjing. The Mei Lanfang art school he founded reversed the situation of "life-oriented" on the previous Peking Opera stage and created a new era of "equal emphasis on life and dan".
Showroom scene
The exhibition exhibits nearly 400 physical objects (sets), nearly 600 pictures, including eight units of "Qunying Spectrum Jingyun", "Mei Xiu Out of the Family", "Mei Zhan Hundred Flowers", "Mei Xin Yuxuan", "Mei Xiang Chuan Wanli", "Plum Bone Proud Wind and Snow", "Plum Newspaper All Things Spring", "Mei Yun Exhibition New Sound" eight units.
Among them, the "Mei Xiu Out of the Family" unit mainly shows the family life of Master Mei Lanfang, which is composed of four parts: "Four Generations of Meimen", "Art Chengming Master", "Crane Ming Chusheng" and "Shanghai Fame", presenting Mei Lanfang's pear garden family lineage, shi cheng and artistic expression in the early stage of art.
Mei Lanfang was born in 1894 in Beijing to a pear garden family, the Mei clan of Jinggongtang. At the age of nine (1902), he began to study Peking Opera Tsing Yi, and at the age of eleven (1904), he appeared on stage, and in 1912, he co-starred with Tan Xinpei, the "King of the Lingjie", "Mulberry Garden", and came to prominence on the stage in Beijing. In 1913, he performed in Shanghai for the first time, and he shined, and since then "Mei Lanfang" has become a household name.
The unit of "Mei Zhan Hundred Flowers" mainly reflects Mei Lanfang's artistic growth, which is composed of three parts: "Du Xue Jing", "Shou Zheng Kai Xin" and "Art Leader Qunfang".
While inheriting the tradition, Mei Lanfang choreographed a number of new fashion plays and new costume plays, and carried out bold reforms and innovations in Peking Opera performances, stages, costumes, makeup, and accompaniment. After continuous exploration, Mei Lanfang pushed the performing arts of Peking Opera Danxing to a new height, and formed a unique performing art genre - Mei Pai.
The "Meixiang Chuan Wanli" unit shows the influence and dissemination of Mei Lanfang's art and culture, which is composed of four parts: "Cultural Messenger", "Liangdu Dongying", "Visiting the United States" and "Visiting the Soviet Union and Europe".
Mei Lanfang is a pioneer in the overseas dissemination of Chinese opera. Since he first stepped out of the country in 1919, he has visited Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union to perform, not for rice sorghum, but to promote culture, highlighting his high degree of cultural consciousness. Chinese opera art has gradually been understood, recognized and accepted by the overseas theater community, and Chinese opera art represented by Mei Lanfang has gone abroad and ranked among the world's theater forests.
The "Plum Bone Proud Wind and Snow" unit focuses on Mei Lanfang's feelings of home and country, and is composed of four parts: "Acting to wake up the world", "Bearded Mingzhi", "Danqing Unswerving" and "Yide Liufang".
After the "9.18" incident in 1931, Mei Lanfang moved from Beiping to Shanghai, and he successively rehearsed a number of plays to resist the enemy and save the dead and resist foreign insults, arousing the people's strong patriotic enthusiasm. In 1938, Mei Lanfang took refuge in Hong Kong, and after the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Mei Lanfang grew a beard and resolutely did not perform on stage, and painting became the main sustenance of his artistic sentiments in that period.
The "Spring of All Things in Mei Bao" section depicts the deeds of Mei Lanfang wholeheartedly devoted herself to the socialist cultural work of New China after the founding of the People's Republic of China, as well as the honors entrusted to Mei Lanfang by the party and the government, which is composed of six parts: "New Mission", "Walking on Songs", "Peaceful Diplomacy", "Searching for Roots in Taizhou", "Taking the Oath to Join the Party", and "Climbing the Peak Again".
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mei Lanfang, as a literary and art worker and people's artist, received education from the party, constantly transformed herself, conscientiously studied Mao Zedong's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.", underwent important changes in her outlook on literature and art and the world, and continuously enhanced her political consciousness. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he gloriously joined the Communist Party of China and created the last representative play, "Mu Guiying Hangs Commander".
In 1917, Mei Lanfang was named the "King of the Drama Industry", and mei Lanfang, who was known as the "People's Artist" after the founding of New China, was still awarded the honorary title of "Most Beautiful Strivers" in 2019, nearly 60 years after his death. From "The King of the Drama Industry" to "People's Artist" to "The Most Beautiful Strivers", Mei Lanfang's "Virtue and Art Double Xin" is truly deserved and deeply moving. This exhibition is a perfect interpretation of Mei Lanfang's noble moral qualities.
(Photo by Yu Guanchen)