Editor's Note
Hunan International Channel launched a special project of "A Hundred Years of Glory in China, The Tide of the World", which is three-dimensionally linked with the historical memory of the Communist Party of China over the past hundred years in the form of "songs, scenery and poetry", and carries out a series of special practices in party history study and education around the three major sections of "time and space duet", "time and space pursuit" and "time and space recitation". With red classics and odes to the century-old style, the "Centennial Glory of China" column of Hunan International Channel will make a MV of selected representative red songs that are familiar to us, and through the "black technology" editing technique, the new and old "on the same stage" sing the same song together, presenting a time and space duet spanning a hundred years.
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"North Wind Blows"
"The north wind blows, the snowflakes flutter, the snowflakes flutter, the year comes..." In this catchy melody, known to women and children, the image of Xi'er, a peasant girl with red jackets and green pants and a big braid, suddenly appeared, and people's thoughts were immediately pulled back to the night when the snowflakes flew.
▲ Stills from the opera "The White-Haired Girl"
The song "North Wind Blowing" is the most popular singing section in the opera "White Haired Girl", with lyrics by He Jingzhi and Ding Yi, and music by Marco and Zhang Lu. The music creates the image of a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl, "Xi'er", who is innocent and lively, simple and kind, and at the same time expresses her expectations and sadness when she hopes that her father will return home soon.
The opera "White Haired Girl", collectively created by The Lu Xun Art Institute in Yan'an, is the first national opera in the history of New China, and also a landmark work in the history of Chinese opera, which was premiered in Yan'an in 1945 during the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China with great success. It was later adapted into films, Peking operas, and ballets, which have influenced generations of Chinese, and the inheritance has remained enduring for more than 70 years.
▲ Poster of the movie "The White-Haired Girl"
Since its premiere in 1945, the characters of Xi'er, Yang Bailao, Huang Shiren and other characters in "White Haired Girl", as well as classic excerpts such as "North Wind Blowing", "Tie the Red Head Rope", "Hate is a Mountain, Hatred is the Sea" have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
As an interlude of "The White-Haired Girl", "North Wind Blowing" can be said to be the most glorious stroke, which not only provides the most representative material for the study of "The White-Haired Girl" and national opera, but also is an excellent example of the use of folk song materials for professional creation.
When the prelude to "the north wind blows and the snow drifts" sounds, Xi'er appears in the face of the wind and snow. The first appearance is brilliant. This is Xi'er's first appearance in the whole play, and the image in the audience's mind is fixed here.
Xi'er was one of the thousands of suffering people in old China, a drop in the ocean, and a representative figure.
After the completion of the draft of "The White-Haired Girl", more than 30 performances were performed in Yan'an, and received an unprecedented warm welcome, and the applause at each wonderful place was thunderous and endless, and every time there was sorrow, there was always a cry under the stage, some people from the first act to the sixth act, the tears were never dried, and even a soldier in a performance rushed to the stage to kill the landlord Huang Shiren in the play. People praised the scene of emotional fusion on and offstage as "turning over people watching the turnaround drama". Soon, the "white-haired female whirlwind" blew all over China and has endured ever since.
The success of the opera "The White-Haired Girl" is largely due to the collective creative team composed of the elites of the literary and artistic circles of the Lu Xun Art Theater at that time, which will refine and sublimate the folklore derived from life, give it a new art form, and extract the new theme of "the old society forces people into ghosts, and the new society turns ghosts into people", making it from a specific event in real life to a typical story that can reflect the nature of the changes of the times, a new Chinese story.
According to Mr. He Jingzhi, the main screenwriter of the play, he recalled that when he wrote, he would recall the character image of rural life, and would also combine it with his own experience, "Writing about Yang Bailao drinking brine to commit suicide, I wrote it with tears. He also particularly stressed that although he wrote the important part of the literary script and the subsequent revisions were also made by him, he only participated in a small part, and this work was actually the brainchild of the older generation of Yan'an Luyi.
In the past 76 years, "The White-Haired Girl" has never stopped its own footsteps and has been carefully passed on by generations of artists in many forms of expression. This flower of art, which is full of painstaking efforts, also carries the profound meaning of the times and blooms in front of the audience, bright and undefeated.
At the premiere, Xi'er was played by Wang Kun. Guo Lanying first played Xi'er in 1947, and her voice was recognized as extremely penetrating. In 1972, Zhu Fengbo sang the accompaniment of the ballet "The White-Haired Girl", and her touching and unique singing voice successfully set off the image of the heroine.
▲ Wang Kun
▲ Zhu Fengbo
▲ Guo Lanying as Xi'er
A classic work always has to travel through the storms of the times in a long period of time, constantly withstanding the test of time and space. In the history of Chinese opera, the first to go abroad was "White Haired Girl"; in the history of international opera, the influence of "White Haired Girl" is also enduring.
Since the new period, "The White-Haired Girl" has been repeated many times. In 2015, the Ministry of Culture organized a re-arrangement of the opera "White Haired Girl" and filmed a 3D stage art film, and Lei Jia, a famous singer and national first-class actor of the General Political Song and Dance Troupe, took over the baton and became the fourth generation of "White Haired Girl".
During the creation of the new version of the opera "White Haired Girl", Lei Jia and more than 30 other main creators and cast members also went to the prototype of "White Haired Girl" - Hefang Village, Beiye Township, Pingshan County, Shijiazhuang City, to live in the hometown of the villagers, eat and live with the villagers. Collecting firewood, herding sheep, making dumplings, pasting cakes, ordering brine tofu... The life of "grounded gas" gives the actors a more realistic feeling for the performance. Through field visits to the White Haired Women's Cave, Grandma Temple, and visits to the Xibaipo Memorial Hall, the actors also have a deeper understanding of character shaping. The play has been well received in previous tour stations, especially Lei Jia's penetrating voice and delicate performance, which poked the tear glands of many audiences.
As China's first national opera, "The White-Haired Girl" made opera begin to become a favorite art form of the people. This red classic from the people has nourished generations of audiences. Generation after generation of creators and performers have given this red classic a new charm. The voice of the "white-haired girl" has always reverberated on the land of China and has lasted for a long time.
Producer/Commander-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief/Chen Weichun
Video/Xia Jingting
Editor/Leilei Li Liu Youhan (Intern)
Reference source/ Xinhua News Network China News Network Yanzhao Evening News Shijiazhuang Daily