Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition
From top to bottom, the pictures are: the performance of the opera "Manas" in Kyrgyzstan, the interaction between the Kyrgyz audience and the actors of "Manas", the exchange of students of the National Conservatory of Music of Kazakhstan with Chinese folk musicians, and the poster of the Chinese Orchestra of the Chinese Opera and Dance Theater performing in Kazakhstan. Courtesy of respondents
Manas, an opera based on a common cultural treasure, conveys the deep love and friendship between the chinese and Kyrgyz peoples; A concert "Treasures of the Nation", which embodies the essence of Chinese folk music, brings together the "Zhiyin" from the ancient Silk Road, and reflects the movements of the "Belt and Road" era; A peking opera "Onegin", which was co-produced and adapted from the works of literary giant Pushkin, witnessed the deep integration and cooperation of literature and art between China and Russia...
Recently, the "China-SCO National Youth Performing Arts Forum" sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the SCO Secretariat and the Shandong Provincial People's Government was held in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and guests from top theaters and orchestras at home and abroad, through online and offline exchanges and discussions, told the fruitful results achieved in recent years by using literature and art as a bridge to promote people-to-people ties, showing the world the beauty of harmony and harmony of diverse civilizations.
A "Manas" to convey the friendship between the two countries
"The Taras River, which flows from the snowy peaks, merges into a lake like the moon, and she is so holy and noble, and people call you Ayikol. Holy Moon Lake Ayikol, how many magical legends you have. ”
On June 11, 2019, the original opera "Manas" of the Central Opera House was performed at the National Ballet Opera Of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the theater that can accommodate nearly 1,000 people was full, and the scene resounded with applause more than 30 times, and the curtain lasted for nearly 20 minutes, and the excited audience shouted the names of "Sai Mai Taiyi", "Kanekai" and "Manas" in the play, expressing their joy with the most sincere, warmest and most lasting applause.
The opera "Manas" originates from Manas, one of the three classical national epics in China, and tells the story of manas, the national hero of the Kyrgyz ethnic group, and his descendants for a total of eight generations, constantly fighting for national rejuvenation and forging ahead. As a cultural treasure of the "Belt and Road" for thousands of years, the epic "Manas" has a wide influence not only in Xinjiang region, but also in countries along the route, especially in China's neighbor Kyrgyzstan, "Manas" has important significance, Kyrgyzstan's highest medal of honor is named after it.
Zhu Wenxin, director of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Central Opera House, introduced that in June 2018, the opera "Manas" was performed at the Beijing Tianqiao Art Center, and after the then President of Kyrgyzstan, Zenbekov, after watching the performance, invited "Manas" to Kyrgyzstan on the spot. A year later, when the 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO member states was held in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, a group of 157 people from the Central Opera House went to the meeting, and the performance was a great success.
"While promoting heroism, the opera "Manas" further promotes the close exchanges and ties between the SCO member states in the field of humanities, and effectively promotes the people-to-people ties, and the successful performance of this drama in Kyrgyzstan not only affects the sails of cultural exchanges between China and Kyrgyzstan, but also sings the cultural exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations that have been in the same vein for thousands of years." Zhu Wenxin said.
A "Treasure of the Nation", gathering the silk road acquaintances
Central Asia has been inextricably linked to China since ancient times, and many traditional musical instruments such as pipa, erhu, yangqin, and gongna have been transmitted to China through the ancient Silk Road, and have become an important part of Chinese culture through improvement and development.
Feel the hearts of the students of the National Conservatory of Music of Kazakhstan and the Chinese folk music players, appreciate the calm and peaceful peace of the people of The Gishar in the border town of Tajikistan, shake the vicissitudes of the millennium town of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, touch the warmth and cordiality of friends in Islamabad, Pakistan, and immerse yourself in the desirable artistic atmosphere of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia... For Luan Dong, director of the Chinese Orchestra of the China Opera and Dance Theatre, all these beautiful moments are frozen in the journey of the orchestra's tour over the years.
"The road of touring is a road that gathers friends, a road that promotes people-to-people ties between different countries and different nationalities, and a broad avenue for pursuing peace and friendship. Luan Dong said.
During the 2018 "Happy Spring Festival" tour, the Chinese Opera and Dance Theater Chinese Orchestra brought a large-scale national orchestra concert "Treasure of the Nation" to the audiences of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries. This concert brings together the treasures of ethnic and folk music such as ethnic minority music, Korean music, opera music, and Nanyin music in Xinjiang, and shows the music and cultural map of China's "ten different winds and one hundred miles of different customs".
The concert was well received in the three Central Asian countries. The vice president of the Navoi National Theatre in Uzbekistan told Luan Dong that this was the first time in the theater's history that a Chinese national concert was staged, "like a dream", which made him extremely excited. After each performance, several young performers of the Chinese Orchestra of the China Opera and Dance Theater will pick up the camera and communicate with the audience face-to-face, recording the next piece of sincere feelings. The dialogue of music closes the distance between hearts and minds.
A play of "Onegin", highlighting the charm of the fusion of East and West
What kind of sparks will arise when Peking Opera, which arose in China in the 19th century, and the poetic novel "Yevgeny Onegin" written in Russia in the 19th century?
In June 2017, the National Peking Theatre and the Alessandrina Theater in Russia signed a memorandum of cooperation on the joint production of the Peking opera "Onegin". In November 2019, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia, representatives of China and Russia formally signed an agreement on the joint production of Onegin at the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.
The Alexandrina Theater is 260 years old and is the oldest national theater in Russia. Historically, this theater has had an indissoluble relationship with China. In 1935, Mei Lanfang's first visit to the Soviet Union took the stage at the Alessandrina Theater, performing Peking operas such as "Fishing and Killing The Family" and "Rainbow Pass", and Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Eisenstein and other well-known figures in the Soviet theater, film and literature circles all attended the scene, deeply impressed by the great charm of Chinese opera virtual freehand.
According to Lin Lin, vice president of the National Peking Theatre, the Peking Opera "Onegin" is directed by Valery Fujin, artistic director of the Alessandrina Theater, and a young and active Chinese creative team composed of Chi Jun, screenwriter of the National Peking Opera Theatre, and xu Mengke, director. Chinese and Russian artists will use the traditional artistic techniques of Chinese Peking Opera chanting and playing to excavate and interpret this work in a new way, presenting Western classics in the form of Oriental art.
The combination of two representative national theaters, Chinese Peking Opera and Russian drama on the same stage, is particularly eye-catching. "Peking Opera is famous in Russia and has attracted the interest of many Russian audiences. We are all very much looking forward to the Peking opera "Onegin", which will be unique. Fokin said.
Although the sudden outbreak of the new crown pneumonia in 2020 once interrupted the creation of "Onegin", the main creative teams of the two sides overcame various difficulties and conducted in-depth discussions on script creation, directing style, stage design and other aspects in the form of online video conferencing for many times, and now the drama is planned to advance the creation and rehearsal as planned, planning to premiere in St. Petersburg, Russia in September 2023, followed by the Chinese domestic premiere in Beijing, and successively carry out tours in Chinese and Russian cities and Europe.
Fruitful, the prospects for performing arts cooperation are broad
The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra performed in Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Moscow and other cities in Russia with concerts immersed in traditional Chinese rhythms; The Central Chinese Orchestra and the Russian Osipov Chinese Orchestra jointly held an online concert, in which Balalika piano artist Alexander Nikolaichuk and Zhao Cong, director of the Central Chinese Orchestra, played the pipa song "Bloom" in the air; For more than 20 years, the Shanghai International Arts Festival in China has invited more than 70 countries and regions on five continents, more than 700 Chinese and foreign art groups, and more than 40,000 artists to present nearly 1,100 excellent plays (festivals) at home and abroad, including many art groups and artists from SCO member states, building a bridge of civilizational exchanges and mutual learning in the vast Eurasian continent...
Looking back over the past 20 years, with the joint efforts of the SCO countries, cooperation in the cultural field of the SCO has been deeply rooted in the soil, fruitful and bright spots, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of the SCO and injecting strong impetus.
"The SCO countries are culturally diverse, their performing arts resources are very rich, and their background for performing arts exchanges and cooperation is also very rich and their prospects are broad." Feng Litao, deputy director of the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said. He said that people-to-people exchanges focus on continuous inheritance, and mutual learning is valuable in continuous innovation.
In recent years, as the "national team" of Chinese national music, the Central Chinese Orchestra has used "breaking the circle", "innovation" and "integration" as keywords to find a point of convergence with international art groups and expand the dissemination channels of folk music with the help of the Internet. So far, the orchestra's total subscriptions on overseas social media platforms have exceeded 1.5 million and the total number of views has exceeded 209 million.
"Our "Qi Tianle" staged at the Lantern Festival Gala skillfully integrated the space music blessings and folk music performances from the Chinese space station, and was viewed 7.82 million times overseas on all platforms. Overseas netizen comments: Interesting and innovative, the original Chinese folk music can still be like this! Zhao Cong said.
In recent years, the epidemic has brought challenges to the global performing arts industry, in 2021, the Shanghai International Arts Festival launched a sub-brand "Custom Art", including offline theater observation, online drama viewing, cross-border integration project experience, professional workshops and other forms, through the development and exploration of new era art forms, to promote the integration and interaction of science and technology, games, installations, vision, landscape, intangible cultural heritage, etc. with stage art, and build a new platform for artists to connect with international standards and communicate with young audiences.
Nowadays, as many Chinese artists move to the world stage, foreign audiences' appreciation of Chinese works has also shifted from being amazed and amazed to a deeper understanding of the content of their works. This will inspire Chinese artists to continue to create better works, move towards a broader exhibition and performance space, and play a greater role in promoting Chinese culture and promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. Huang Yan, general manager of Shanghai International Cultural Exchange Co., Ltd., said. (Reporter Zheng Na)
People's Daily Overseas Edition ( 2022-08-08 Edition 07)