The "Four Ladies" praised Tan Yuanshou

Mr. Tan Yuanshou, a famous Peking Opera performance artist, went to Jingxian on October 9 at the age of 92, which surprised the whole pear garden. I really don't want to believe this is a fact! Just before the "Double Festival", I made an appointment to visit my husband, but before I could leave, I received bad news. In my grief and regret, I suddenly remembered that more than thirty years ago, I accompanied the "Fourth Lady" to enjoy Tan Yuanshou's great drama of singing "Playing Gold Bricks".

In 1988, the auspicious theater. All four ladies were present, as they had been concerned and advised to resume the show. The "four ladies" are Zhuo Lin, the wife of Vice Chairman Deng Xiaoping; Bian Tao, the wife of Chairman Wanli; Qi Xin, the wife of Vice Chairman Xi Zhongxun; and Lin Bin, the wife of Yang Yong, the founding general and former commander of the Beijing Military Region. The Peking Opera community also often refers to them as the "four big sisters". This is a good story in the Beijing Jutan in the 1980s and 1990s, and the story of their concern and support for Peking Opera is almost universally known in the Peking Opera circle.

An Yunwu, a descendant of Ma Pai and a famous Peking opera actor at the Beijing Opera House, greeted every lady at the door early. They were all riding lightly in plain clothes, consciously buying tickets, and told me not to alarm anyone, "We are just ordinary spectators." After the play began, Tan Yuanshou on the stage did everything in his power, and he did not see that he was an old man with a flower armor. This was the last time he performed the play, which he called "a performance of a lifetime". The gong and drum sounded, only to see Tan Yuanshou even throwing his belt upside down, covering the left and right, wearing a long hair and beard, wearing a dragon robe, pedaling thick-soled boots, and walking two "hanging hairs" in succession in a high-pitched and passionate singing voice, rising high and falling lightly, just like the autumn wind falling leaves; "hard zombies", unexpectedly landed flat and silent, especially when the second "hanging hair" landed, miraculously slid forward a meter, impartial, the dragon's whiskers did not scatter, the robe towel covered its face, and the hair fluff dragged straight on the platform carpet, causing a storm-like sensation. I sat in the fifth row and looked stunned. It is said that it is difficult to make such a difficult move when he is more than fifty years old, not to mention that Tan Yuanshou was already sixty at that time, but he could be so charming on the stage!

"Playing gold bricks" was originally a Li Pai (Li Shaochun) play, which once showed a sensational effect, but since Mr. Li's death, no one dared to touch this difficult play anymore, and it was more than ten years. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", Tan Yuanshou, who studied under Mr. Li Shaochun, took the lead in re-enacting this "Hitting the Golden Bricks" in a duty-bound manner. Aunt Zhuo Lin watched the first performance of Tan Yuanshou's recovery, accompanied by An Yunwu, and told me a moving detail. October 1980, The Palace of National Culture in Beijing. When Tan Yuanshou's "Erhuang" slowly sang that "Mr. Deng's yin and yang are accurate, and the martial arts are fighting with Emperor Yao's brother Baoding Qiankun", Aunt Zhuo continuously wiped her glasses and eyes with a handkerchief in the audience's thunderous applause and applause, and even emotionally shed tears. This is Mr. Tan's big drama accusing the "Gang of Four", and the extremely strong infectious force shown shocked Zhuo Lin, who had suffered great hardships.

My mother quietly said to me while watching "Playing Gold Bricks": "I have not seen the emperor, but watching this play performed by Tan Yuanshou, I suddenly understand that the emperor is like this!" ”

The story of the Four Ladies is much more than that, especially in the mid-1980s, when their interest in Peking Opera was at its peak.

I remember that Aunt Zhuo Lin was most concerned about the new performance of the old opera, and the comrade-in-arms Peking Opera Troupe encountered financial problems when rehearsing "Crossing the River in White Clothes" and "Liu YinJi", and her old man personally came forward to find a way to help solve it. After watching "Liu Yin", she praised Ye Shaolan, the son of "Prince Xiaosheng" Ye Shenglan, for his artistic skills and talent for combining rigidity and softness, and praised her father's typhoon.

Aunt Qi Xin admires the talent of Chen Yongling, known as the "Four Little Famous Dans", and often watches his "Picking Jade Bracelet", "Oolong Courtyard", "Little Tomb" and other good plays.

In the spring of 1986, An Yunwu initiated the formation of the Beijing Junior Amateur Jingkun Art Troupe, the four ladies gave great support, and happily went on stage to meet the young actors and teachers, which was the only time I had ever seen the four ladies on stage to meet the actors and teachers, because they always insisted on buying tickets to watch the play, not on stage, not in the VIP lounge.

In the late 1990s, the four ladies were old and rarely went out, but they still supported the development of Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera. In 1997, after the death of Uncle Deng Xiaoping, Aunt Zhuo Lin only watched opera tapes at home, and at the behest of her parents, I repeatedly brought Peking opera videos and discs to Deng Mansion, and sometimes she stood up on crutches to greet me, a little opera fan. In fact, I wrote drama reviews, and I was first taught by Aunt Zhuo Lin. Once, when she saw the performances of Wang Yinqiu, Zhao Baoxiu and Zhang Xuejin at the Beijing Peking Opera Theater, she saw me and said, "Wan Bo'ao, how much you care about the drama, how good it is to write articles about this aspect, much better than what 'manhood' magazine you are engaged in!" "Since then, I have been practicing writing about Peking Opera.

When I reported the names of the Jingkun operas on the tape one by one, Aunt Zhuo Lin said: "These are all very wonderful plays, thank you and your mother Comrade Bian Tao, I accepted these precious gifts." Later, Aunt Zhuo Lin could not sit for a long time, her eyesight was not good, she could not see with her eyes, so she lay on the bed and listened with her ears, and whenever Jinghu sounded and all the famous artists sang, she felt much more refreshed. (Wan Bo Ao)