The resident performance of Wanping Theater expanded the "circle of friends", and Xiao Shanbo and Xiaoyingtai emerged in the Winter Camp of Yue Opera

Cao Qingyu, 4 and a half years old, watched the resident version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" three times at the Wanping Theater, "The clothes are beautiful, there are peony flowers and butterflies." She likes to fall asleep listening to Yue opera singing, and is teased by her mother that "she is not a professional actor, she has an occupational disease." On February 12, after the completion of the Wanping Theater Yue Opera Winter Camp, Cao Qingyu and 10 friends took the stage together and sang the classic excerpt of "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" "My family has a little nine sisters". The play is also one of the new resident performances of Wanping Theatre this year. With the resident performance as the link, Wanping Theater expanded the "circle of friends" and let the opera brush the screen.

3 and a half years old Zhang Luoyi first came into contact with Yue opera through the winter camp and enjoyed it. "She was very excited to watch the Spring Festival Gala opera performance, and we also bought tickets for this month's "Dream of the Red Chamber" performance." Zhang Luoyi's mother introduced that before participating in the Wanping Theater's "You Are a Performer" activity, she found the poster of the Yue opera winter camp and immediately registered her child, "When I was a child, I didn't have the opportunity to learn drama, and I didn't know where to go to learn." When the children went to winter camp, I also listened and learned a few paragraphs. ”

13-year-old Tang Fuyi is also influenced by the family since childhood like Yue opera, grandma is a fan of drama, Huangmei opera, Yue opera, Gan opera, critics love to listen. Tang Fuyi's parents once hesitated, "Compared with dance and piano, the audience of opera is not so large." Tang Fuyi insisted on learning drama. Her mother said happily, "When a child finds something he likes, his motivation to learn soars." Without my urging, self-care ability improves and time is better managed. Originally, she was a bit procrastinating, and two hours of work could take a whole day. Now if she wants to learn drama, she must seize the time, and her work and rest and learning efficiency are much higher than before. ”

"Xiqu is the best bridge for learning a language. There are many classic plays on the stage based on famous works, such as "Dream of the Red Chamber", and "Home", which will be performed at the Wanping Theater this year. Yue opera master Zhao Zhigang made a special trip to watch the winter camp report final performance, "Children walk into the theater, we can also send opera courses to school." If there is no contact opportunity, the child does not understand opera, talk about how to like. On the contrary, we help the children put on costumes, accompanied by music, let them experience the plot and characters by themselves, today is Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, tomorrow is Jia Baoyu, the day after tomorrow is Mu Guiying, and the day after tomorrow is He Wenxiu. While learning to play, children can also learn to unite and help each other in stage performances. ”

In Zhao Zhigang's view, the resident performance of Wanping Theater provides a first-mover advantage for creating a diversified opera ecology, "the resident performance requires the theater and troupe to devote all their efforts to ensuring quality, and invite artistic masters and theater groups to perform more." The repertoire is varied and varied in order to bring more audience attention. Resident performances have encouraged more audiences to develop the habit of 'watching Yue opera to Wanping', and they will spontaneously care about what new performances and new repertoire there have been recently. The winter camps, summer camps, and children's participation that accompany this have promoted more ethnic groups to join the opera 'circle of friends'. ”

Since the end of September 2021, Wanping Theatre has made great efforts in popularizing the art of opera, including parent-child half-day camps, backstage visits, live broadcasts and other activities. In order to improve the aesthetic education of opera and cultivate a solid audience, Wanping used its own advantages to open up a precedent for opera teaching in the Shanghai theater industry, and the first Yue opera winter camp with Yue opera actors and professional children's opera teaching teachers as teachers came into being. The winter camp combines opera teaching with theater, in addition to Yue opera actors teaching singing and playing, it also sets up Yue opera knowledge science courses and theater tours, taking children to see the venue, understand the stage equipment, and have a figurative experience of the backstage of Wanping Theater. The parents of the students said: "After comparing dance, music, vocal music and other courses, I found that Yue opera combined these contents perfectly, both physical teaching and singing vocal exercises, which were very cost-effective. ”

The winter camp provides children with professional rehearsal halls and exercise clothes, they learn the classic singing section of Yue opera "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" "My family has a little nine sisters", from reading to singing to the body, in just 5 days on stage to report performances, but also learn the knowledge of Yue opera, understand the four tunes, ruler tones and other common sense of opera music theory. In the dressing room, you will receive the opera makeup of the professional makeup artists of the troupe, and experience the opera actors in front of and behind the scenes. The children's small figures are dressed in tailor-made costumes, holding delicate folding fans, and performing in a similar manner. At the end of the performance, the parents gave a warm applause.

Summer, general manager of Wanping Theater, said that as early as the Spring Festival, Wanping Theater ushered in the first batch of audiences in the Year of the Tiger, and uninterrupted resident performances enriched the cultural life of the audience during the festival, followed by the launch of the winter camp to fill the gap period after the Spring Festival, so that more parents have new choices in aesthetic education. Since the first theater open day during the National Day last year, Wanping Theater has been committed to allowing the audience to enter the theater and feel the opera, and this winter camp has changed the concept of "the theater only welcomes guests at night" in the perception of large and small audiences, and also opened the door during the day to create a theater at the doorstep of the citizens.

Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu

图片来源：主办方供图      

Source: Author: Zhuge Yi