With the fiery holding of the 12th Oriental Famous Opera Month, the famous Yue opera performance group Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe will re-enter the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on April 17-18, bringing its classic works "Liang Zhu" and "Five Daughters To Shou" to shanghai audiences to show a hundred flowers and a colorful opera classic.
Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe was born in May 1984, and for more than 30 years, generations of Xiaobaihua people have made remarkable artistic achievements in inheriting and developing the artistic road of Yue opera. "A flower attracts a hundred flowers to blossom", at that time, all parts of Zhejiang followed suit, and many troupes with the title of "Little Hundred Flowers" appeared, and a large number of Yue opera rookies sprung up like mushrooms after the rain, showing the "Yue opera small hundred flowers flourishing" of "one flower leading, a hundred flowers blooming". "Little Hundred Flowers" inherits and develops the true meaning of traditional Chinese culture, and the six-character true scripture of seeking innovation, beauty and refinement has attracted the attention of the Chinese theater industry. It is reported that this time the Oriental Famous Drama Month specially invited Cai Zhefei, a new generation of leaders of Xiaobaihua, Zhang Yiqing, Wei Chunfang, Zhou Yan and other main forces to join.
Spanning 15 years, the new version of "Liang Zhu" has become a classic
15 years ago, Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe specially invited Guo Xiaonan, "Outstanding Director of the New Century", to create a new version of "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai". Created to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Yue opera, this repertoire maximizes the poetic and romantic integration of Liang Zhu's original works and Yue opera genres. From the original "Butterfly Festival", "Double Butterfly" to "Liang Zhu Impression"... The creation of the new version of "Liang Zhu" lasted for 7 years and was changed no less than dozens of times. The classic love legend is transformed by Zhejiang Xiaobaihua, interpreted and packaged by modern thinking and fashion dance, showing a unique charm.
Mao Weitao, the original presenter, said that the new version of "Liang Zhu" has three new " new emotional narrative methods, new unique humanistic concepts and new stage presentation" - "new emotional narrative methods, new unique humanistic concepts and new stage presentations". "This play wants to make the audience feel a distant love, a distant beauty, and even a sublime." This year, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai will be played by Wei Chunfang and Zhang Yiqing respectively. As one of the main actors of the new generation of "Xiaobaihua", Wei Chunfang has starred in many plays, and his loyal and stable personal temperament is more in line with the character image of Liang Shanbo, and his performance is fresh and free, and his singing voice is mellow and melodious. Wei Chunfang said that the new version of "Liang Zhu" is the most successful representative work of XiaoBaihua in the past 20 years, and it is also a work that she has repeatedly challenged the emotional tension of opera for more than ten years and constantly figured out how to make the audience better enter and enter the country. And Zhang Yiqing's performance is delicate and calm, singing warm and emotional, she gradually grew from a scholar who cooperated with Mao Weitao in "Liang Zhu" to a new generation of Zhu Yingtai, she laughed and said that she had picked up the treasure by chance, in fact, she made unimaginable efforts behind it.
In the 15 years of the new version of Liang Zhu's interpretation, the brilliant and colorful stage sets, exquisite and beautiful costumes and props, Gu Pan's performances, and delicate and vivid portrayals have all made the fans shine, and even added elements of musicals and film and television dramas. In the stage performance, the play takes "fan metaphor butterfly" as the most important way, and through the promotion and use of the four elements of fan action, scheduling, emotion and imagery in the performance of the actors, the encounter, acquaintance, worship, separation, and farewell of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai are presented in a modern dance vocabulary that is both classical and modern, both traditional and fashionable, both Chinese and world. The two folding fans rising at the end of the play poetically reproduce the beauty of Liang and Zhu's "butterfly", such as the crying violin concerto "Liang Zhu" to add a beautiful oriental charm to the repertoire. It can be said that the new version of "Liang Zhu" retains the classic Yue opera singing sections "Caoqiao Jiebai", "Eighteen Phases", "Meeting on the Terrace" and "Death of Shanbo", and successfully rejuvenates and modernly entertains this classic love story that has been recited for many years.
Mao Weitao said, "Of course, the new version will not be a classic reproduction, if we copy the tradition, we can't surpass our predecessors no matter how well we do, why can't we make the stage rich?" Mao Weitao once stressed that the new version of "Liang Zhu" is the transformation of Zhejiang Xiaobaihua, and the performance method of drama and song and dance will be the direction they will adhere to in the future.
Led by the new regimental leader Cai Zhefei, the new generation performed "Five Girls Worship Shou"
Written by playwright Gu Xidong, "Five Daughters Worship Shou" is the repertoire and pioneering work of the Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe. More than 30 years ago, "Five Girls Worship Shou" made the Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe come out of nowhere, and also made Mao Weitao, He Saifei, Dong Kedi, He Ying, and Fang Xuewen's "Five Golden Flowers" famous. Zhejiang Xiaobaihua, an all-female Yue opera troupe, has become a banner and a landscape in the Chinese theater industry with its youthful and innovative atmosphere. All along, Yue opera "Five Daughters Baishou" has become a new classic of Yue opera in the new era, and it is also an important part of the artistic achievements of Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe, and has become a classic repertoire that every generation of Xiaobaihua actors must learn and inherit. Its distinct plot of good and evil, tragic and joyful intertwined, and the impact of the large color blocks of the stage gave the audience a complete shock.
Cai Zhefei, who has just become the new head of the "Little Hundred Flowers", will bring the main force of the Mesozoic and new generations of "Little Hundred Flowers", including Wei Chunfang, Zhou Yan, Zhu Danping, Xu Guofang, Chen Haifeng, to Dongyi to reinterpret this classic "Five Daughters Worship Shou" that has shaped a rich character image and conveyed the traditional Chinese Confucius and Meng's rituals, and the conflict is fierce and the climax of the Yue opera is multi-industry, multi-genre and multi-character.
From stage performer to manager, Cai Is still adapting to her new role. "I usually don't want to be disturbed in the dressing room before the performance, and there will be a meditation stage before I enter the play, so that I can quickly enter the state of the character. However, after becoming the leader of the troupe, this state is difficult not to be broken, and I still hope that I am first a Yue opera actor, and then the leader of the troupe, which is not a small challenge for me. Cai Zhefei said that Yue opera is a young drama genre, and XiaoBaihua is the youth representative of Yue opera, and in the future, on the basis of traditional repertoire, more works in line with the current trend, fashion and beauty of Yue opera will be made, and more innovation will be made from an aesthetic point of view.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Cai Zhefei hopes that Zhejiang Xiaobaihua will add more works with family and country feelings in addition to the emotional dramas in the future, and the academy is currently creating a new Yue opera "Liang Hongyu" to show the moving story of a generation of heroes.
Author: Wang Xiaoli
Image: Courtesy of the organizer
Editor: Chen Xihan