How to create a theater with the characteristics of urban culture

"To know how civilized a city is, just look at its theater." For prosperous metropolises, the grand theater has become a kind of "standard", and China's small and medium-sized cities have also set off a boom in the construction of theaters, many theaters have no lack of luxurious appearance, top equipment. Have they raised the level of civilization in their cities? Does it subtly influence the culture of the city?

The reporter selected Shanghai Poly Grand Theater, Guangzhou Grand Theatre, Zhejiang Jinhua China Wu Theater, and Henan Zhengzhou "Only Henan Drama Magic City" to conduct interviews, combing through their experiences and practices, and unveiling how urban theaters and urban culture can achieve "common prosperity" from "symbiosis".

A cultural landmark of the city

Whether it is a first-tier city, or a second- or third-tier city, these theaters have a common feature - the address is "very exquisite", and even in the landmark position of the city, it undoubtedly has a strong window effect.

Completed in 2010, the Guangzhou Opera House is one of the landmarks on Guangzhou's new central axis, facing the Canton Tower nicknamed "Little Wild Waist". The generous hardware conditions of the Guangzhou Opera House have been praised by influential foreign media, and have the reputation of "the world's top ten opera houses", "the world's most spectacular theater", "the world's most beautiful concert hall", "another miracle after the Sydney Opera House" and so on. It has become a "link point between Guangzhou and the world", a veritable cultural "new business card" in Guangzhou. In the past two years, Guangzhou has launched a series of initiatives to develop the "night economy", and the Guangzhou Grand Theatre has activated the surrounding consumption ecology with the attraction of cultural landmarks, making an important contribution to driving guangzhou's nighttime cultural consumption.

Shanghai, as an international metropolis, already has many theaters, but Poly Group still invested heavily in the construction of Shanghai Poly Grand Theater (assets have been handed over to the local government). Completed in 2014, the theatre is located in Jiading New Town, Jiading District, Shanghai, adjacent to the Shanghai International Circuit, and is one of the iconic cultural facilities in Shanghai and the first theater in China to have a water feature theatre. As an important part of the "Yuanxiang Lake Parlor" focused on building in Jiading District, Shanghai Poly Grand Theater carries the heavy responsibility of "molding the city with culture and displaying the text with the city". Qin Tiji, general manager of the theater, introduced that the theater's positioning is "leading in China, first-class in Asia, world-famous, the Yangtze River Delta regional art leads the new coordinates, and the performance repertoire is a new highland".

In the core area of Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, there is also a modern theater, the China Wu Theater. In September 2013, the Jinhua Municipal Party Committee and the Jinhua Municipal Government handed over the China Wu Opera Theatre, which covers an area of 65 acres and invested 330 million yuan, to the Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute (Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe) for management and use. Located at the confluence of the city's Three Rivers, The China Wu Theatre is the core building of the Yanweizhou City Culture and Arts Center. The theater and its surroundings have been built into cultural and leisure functional areas, and now, the theater and its surroundings have become a place for tourists to come to Jinhua for cultural and leisure punching. There is also a Wuqu Opera Museum of more than 2,000 square meters in the theater.

As a new first-tier city zhengzhou "not willing to be lonely", on June 6, the "Only Henan Drama Magic City" with 21 theaters will be grandly opened, covering an area of 622 acres, with an investment of nearly 6 billion yuan, which can accommodate 10,000 spectators at the same time, of which the three main theaters can accommodate nearly 5,000 spectators at the same time. Different from the above theaters, it is invested and built by the local private capital Henan Jianye Group.

The above theaters, known as landmarks, not only occupy excellent locations, but even they are "high value", which is a work of art in itself. "Elegant design, magnificent appearance, beautiful night view", Shanghai Poly Grand Theatre is described as a crystal box, located between the office building and Yuanxiang Lake. The appearance of the Guangzhou Opera House is two "gravel" of one large and one small, reflecting the spiritual temperament of Guangzhou...

A space to enhance the taste of the city

Theater is part of the city's culture, and it must be integrated with the city where it is located in order to enhance the quality of the city and the theater itself. Aesthetic education is the inherent appeal of everyone's development, and the yearning for a better life is inseparable from the popularization of aesthetic education. As an important art hall in a city or region, the main way to enhance the cultural taste of the city and the region is aesthetic education.

At the Shanghai Poly Grand Theater, there are not only the world's top art troupes, masters, famous artists, famous dramas, but also commercial performances sought after by the audience; there are performances of classic plays such as "Four Generations Together" of the National Drama Theatre of China, "Tea House" of Beijing Renyi, "White Deer Plain" of Shaanxi Renyi, and the star version of "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", as well as performances and lectures such as "Citizens' Concerts", "Citizens' Charity Field", "Oriental Famous Famous Drama Month", "Moon and Moon Drama", "Let Art Light Up Dreams" and other public welfare performances and lectures.

The Guangzhou Opera House has more than 1,300 Chinese and foreign art academies and more than 30,000 artists on the stage, and many famous Chinese and foreign troupes such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theatre, the National Ballet of China and many other famous Chinese and foreign troupes have followed, and the performances cover opera, dance, music, opera, drama, musical theater, etc. General Manager He Ying introduced that this year, the 2021 Theater Celebration Performance Season and the red theme drama performance were carefully planned to show the inheritance and development of China's century-old red gene.

Although the China Wu Theater is located in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, the list of performances here is also very eye-catching, the Russian Kremlin Ballet, the United States Brigham University Choir, the French Women's Philharmonic Orchestra and China's Taiwan Paper Windmill Troupe, the National Peking Theatre, Yang Liping Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., Shanghai Kun Opera Troupe and other more than 100 domestic (domestic) and foreign performance groups, staged plays including "Swan Lake" and other high-quality ballets, as well as opera, drama, musicals, acrobatics.

These theaters not only stage classic works of art, but also directly devote themselves to art education and enhance the artistic literacy of the city in which they live. Shanghai Poly Grand Theater carries out art education to better establish the brand and cultivate the audience, and has risen to the strategic height of theater development, and has opened various forms of art education such as art guide lectures, art salons, master classes, and drama workshops. Its children's choir, children's dance troupe and other outstanding achievements, the children's choir was established in July 2015, has grown to nearly 300 members, and the world-famous Vienna children's choir has shared the stage several times.

The Guangzhou Opera House actively participates in the construction of public culture and elevates the cultural benefit of the people to the long-term strategy of the theater. Since its opening in May 2010, it has held nearly 2,000 free public art education activities such as lectures, exhibitions, and workshops. At the same time, it has actively established a children's choir, a children's ballet, and a youth marching wind orchestra, cultivating tens of thousands of young artistic talents.

As the popularity of China Wu Theater became more and more popular, some people wanted to rent the wu theater's business premises to open snack bars and small supermarkets, but they were rejected. Wang Xiaoping, the person in charge, said that the too low-end commercial form will reduce the taste of Wu Theater. Therefore, like many grand theaters, Wu Theater has a tea bar, coffee bar, small bar, book bar, and at the same time, wu opera experience hall. The low-ticket performances that insist on it all year round have allowed Jinhua audiences to get artistic influence and beauty enjoyment.

Highlight the city's own character

Theaters carry the culture of a city, but also shape the culture of a city, they must match their own urban cultural characteristics, strengthen this characteristics, and even shape and lead the characteristics of a city. This year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, Shanghai as the birthplace of the Party, Shanghai Poly Grand Theater to create activities to match this feature, specially planned "2021 Red Classic Culture Series", held 10 sets of 14 wonderful performances, 1 red theme offline exhibition. Yue opera and Shanghai opera, which are loved by local shanghai residents, and tin operas loved by the people of Jiading District, are continuously staged at the Shanghai Poly Grand Theatre.

In Guangzhou, the forefront of reform and opening up, the Guangzhou Opera House dares to be the first, it cooperates with the Metropolitan Opera of the United States, the Opera di Roma and other world-renowned opera houses to launch 15 "vast versions" of classic operas such as "Turandot", "Aida", "War and Peace", forming the "majority of annual opera" brand. Initiated the establishment of the country's first theater-based youth stage performing arts talent incubator "D Art Space", created the "Monday Star Theater" brand, and has incubated 20 original plays. Guangzhou is an important birthplace of the Maritime Silk Road, and the Guangzhou Opera House has always played a backbone role in the "Silk Road International Theatre Alliance", hosting two consecutive annual meetings of the Silk Alliance in 2017 and 2018, and the alliance's first original opera "Marco Polo" was also born and premiered at the Guangzhou Opera House. This year, the Guangzhou Opera House focuses on creating three original stage works "Existence and Time 2.0", "Exhale and Inhale", and "Activity Transforms into Human Form", creating original IP, and using artistic innovation to promote the construction of Guangzhou's urban culture.

The upcoming "Henan Drama Magic City" was jointly created by Henan Jianye Group and director Wang Chaoge for 4 years. Whether it is the "magic city" architecture or theatrical works, the style is based on the Yellow River civilization and tells the story of "land, grain and inheritance". The core area is a 328-meter square giant city, with loess and wheat as the main design vocabulary, emphasizing the design concept of "big chessboard", 328 meters long rammed earth wall, magnificent 100 acres of wheat fields, with the huge "Qingming River Map" and "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" projection.

The Small Theater of China Wu Theater connects with tourism, and performs the classic Wu opera folding drama for tourists from all over the country every weekend to promote the local culture of Jinhua. Reporter Liu Qian

Source: China Culture Daily