The Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter learned from the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe that Shen Bin, a national first-class director of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe, vice president of the Chinese Opera Directors Association and representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Shanghai, died at 23:16 at the Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital on February 12 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Shen Bin was born in Shanghai in 1947, and in 1959, he entered the second class of Kunqu Opera of Shanghai Opera School to study martial arts, and studied under Gai Chunlai, Tan Jinlin, Zheng Chuanjian, Fang Chuanyun and other famous teachers of the "Chuanzi Generation". When the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe was established in 1978, Shen Bin joined the troupe, and in 1986, he entered the Directing Department of the China Academy of Drama for further study, systematically and comprehensively learning the art of opera directing. He has directed the essence version of "Changsheng Hall", "Zhan Hua Kui", "Blood Hand", "White Snake Sequel", "New Butterfly Dream", "JiaShen Ji", "Legend of No Salt", "Shangling Mountain", "False Son-in-law Riding the Dragon", "Chao Ju Ji", "Dragon And Phoenix Shirt", "Lion Roar", "Linchuan Four Dreams Nanke Dream", "Immortal Hall" (one and two books) and many other large-scale plays. The essence version of "ChangshengDian", which he co-directed, won the Wenhua Repertory Award (top of the list) and the Excellent Director Award of the 7th China Arts Festival, and he was awarded the title of "Kunqu Art Excellent (Director) Creator".
"On September 1, 1959, at the age of 12, I was admitted to the Kun Second Class of the Shanghai Opera School to study opera, and at that time I did not know what Kunqu opera was, let alone what art was. I only know that the drama school does not charge, there is no money for eating, in order to reduce the burden on the family, I stepped into the door of opera art with such curiosity, and I did not expect that this would be a lifetime. Shen Bin has also directed more than 100 plays for more than ten drama genres such as Beijing, Yue, Yu, Huai, Wu, Shao, Xi, Yue, Qian, Lei, Yue, etc., such as Peking Opera "Autumn Wind Fu", "Fan Zhongyun", "Towel Red Jade", "Qin Liangyu", Kun opera "Li Qingzhao", "Great General Han Xin", Wu opera "Tie Ling guan", "Yao Sacrifice Xiang Soul", Yu opera "Princess of the West Lake", "Zhou Gong Fu Zheng", Huai opera "Ancient Han Fei", "Fan Pear Flower", Yue opera "Desert Prince", Shao opera "The Battle of Weishui", Qin Lu "Li Bai Chang'an Xing" and so on. His works have won the "Five One Project Award", the Wenhua Award, the Wenhua Director Award, the Wenhua New Repertoire Award, the China Drama Festival Outstanding Director Award and other art awards.
Looking back on his directing career, Shen Bin once said that Fang Chuanyun and Zheng Chuanjian played a vital role, "When Teacher Fang went to the film studio to shoot "The Song of the Great Wind", he took me to be a technical director. From learning technical guidance with Teacher Fang to independently serving as the technical director of the movie "Pen in Love", it boosted my interest in becoming a director. In 1979, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe rehearsed the Kunqu opera "False Son-in-law Riding the Dragon" adapted from the Puxian opera "Spring Grass Breaking into the Hall", teacher Fang was the artistic director of the play, and I served as the director, which was the starting point of my career as a director. ”
Engaged in opera repertoire director for forty years, Shen Bin has faced the hardships and difficulties of opera reform, and has been confused and wandering, but he has persevered to practice and explore. How to reasonably combine the cultural elements of the opera art ontology with the sense of innovation? He has been consciously exploring in his creation, and after years of creative practice, he has gradually formed an understanding of the essence of Chinese opera art, "In the end, I decided that opera art with unique personality must have a dramatized way of thinking in new creations." As a result, the creative concept of 'the old is not old, the new is not separated from the original' has been gradually established. ”
"As an opera director, it is really not easy, not only to have the ability to control the style and style of the whole drama, but also to have the comprehensive ability of the whole drama lamp, dance, Tao, and effect, and more importantly, to have the means to lead the actors into the creation of characters, so that a play can achieve true integrity." In the synthesis of art, Shen Bin attaches great importance to performing arts, that is, how actors use their performance skills to shape characters, "The characteristics of our opera are to highlight the performance of actors, opera audiences come to see the actors, as the saying goes, it is the art of 'horns'. Until the modern era, I think that the audience of opera still enters the theater with this appreciation habit, and is optimistic that the actors will play the characters with the 'unique skills' of singing, doing, reading and playing. Therefore, the director must mobilize the artistic means of various departments to serve the shaping of the characters. The use of all comprehensive artistic means and high-tech equipment is not simply to meet the visual impact of contemporary audiences, but also to set off and render the emotions and hearts of the characters, around the creation of character services, to 'show off' the skills of the actors. Truly developed into a retained repertoire with the characteristics of this kind of drama, it cannot be passed down with the publicity of the director's artistic personality to drown out the performance of the actors. ”
Shen Bin stressed that a good opera director should not only master the performance rules of the freehand drama concept of opera performance and the virtual, flexible and free time and space treatment of the opera stage, and achieve the integrity of the overall performance, but also an excellent artist who understands performance, "can be proficient in the traditional performance means of life, dan, net, end, and ugly, and can freely guide the actors to serve specific characters with the unique performance means of opera." Just imagine, if our opera directors are not familiar with and do not master the expressiveness of opera art, how can we control and judge the performance of the actors and lead the actors to enter the overall performance according to different characters? ”