Li Linxiao special performance poster Courtesy of the crew
Beijing, March 23 (Xinhua) -- As a disciple of the famous Peking Opera master Zhang Huoding, Li Linxiao, an outstanding young actor of the Cheng Pai of the Beijing Opera House, will hold a special performance at the Chang'an Grand Theater on May 7 and 8 to present the audience with the famous Cheng Pai dramas "The Legend of the White Snake" and "Suolin Capsule".
Li Linxiao (formerly known as Li Li) was admitted to the China Academy of Performing Arts at the age of 18. In 2012, he won the Bronze Award of the 7th CCTV Youth Competition and was admitted to the China Academy of Performing Arts for graduate school. In November 2015, the "Zhang Huoding Peking Opera Chengpai Art Heritage Center" of the China Academy of Performing Arts was officially established, and then the "Zhang Huoding Peking Opera Chengpai Artistic Talent Workshop" was launched, which was selected and recruited ten Chengpai students from all over the country, and accepted Zhang Huoding's "one-on-one" teaching and art transmission, and Li Linxiao joined the ranks of students with excellent strength.
Li Linxiao studied with Zhang Huoding the traditional chengpai plays "Suolin Capsule", "Spring Dream", "Tears of the Barren Mountain", "Sitting Palace", "Red-maned Horse", "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang", "Wen Ji Gui Han", and "Mandarin Duck Tomb". In addition, Zhang Huoding also taught her newly edited representative plays "The Legend of the White Snake", "Sister Jiang" and "Liang Zhu". In 2019 and 2021, she twice held a solo performance at the Chang'an Grand Theater in Beijing, "The Legend of the White Snake" and "Spring Girl's Dream", all three of which were fully seated and unanimously praised by all walks of life.
Zhang Huoding (left) directs Li Linxiao and provides pictures for the crew
For this special performance, Li Linxiao deliberately chose "Suolin Capsule" and "The Legend of the White Snake". The two plays were directed by Ye Shaolan, a famous Peking Opera performance artist, and Zhang Huoding and Song Xiaochuan, famous Peking Opera artists, Zhao Yu, a famous pianist, as the music director, and Liu Shujun, a national stage supervisor, as the stage supervisor. In addition, Yan Xiaoyusi drummer, an outstanding young drummer of Beijing Peking Opera, Zhang Yiping, an outstanding young pianist, played the piano, and Yang Nan, a national first-class actor and outstanding Ye Pai Xiaosheng of Shanghai Peking Opera House, was specially invited to play Xu Xian. There are also the famous ugly Mei Qingyang of the Beijing Opera House to support the younger generation, the national first-class actor Wei Xuelei, the outstanding young actor Meng Xianteng, Qiu Zhi and other enthusiastic performances.
As a representative work of the Cheng School, "Suolin Capsule", created in 1921, is a classic century-old play that has been sung for a long time. Every time Li Linxiao reinterprets the traditional classics, he has a sense of commemoration of his grandfather. This play is very challenging for the actors, because the audience is too familiar, even if the small points are not good, they can be seen, which is also a challenge for the actors.
"The Legend of the White Snake" is a Cheng Pai drama adapted and arranged by Zhang Huoding on the basis of previous artists. There are very few plays that can be seen on the current Peking Opera stage that the Cheng Pai has both culture and martial arts, and Zhang Huoding enriched the stage presentation of the Cheng Pai of Peking Opera through this play.
As a disciple of Zhang Huoding, Li Linxiao said that he would also spare no effort to inherit the classics. In her personal special in 2019, she once performed "The Legend of the White Snake", "From the performance to the expression of the characters, Teacher Huo Ding poured too much effort into me. Every performance is a new life for me, and I very much hope that everyone can see my growth in art. (End)