Hi everyone, I'm a crow.
A few days ago, He Saifei, a well-known actor and Yue opera performance artist, suddenly broke out during the recording of a opera program. At that time, the host Bai Yansheng introduced how a Jin opera actor with a poor life and a monthly salary of only 2,000 yuan insisted on artistic creation, and the judges He Saifei was moved and criticized some theater troupes for not caring about the development of the genre and the growth of young actors, but only caring about setting up a name, rehearsing new plays, winning awards, and cheating funds.
This incident quickly aroused the attention of public opinion, and various discussions emerged one after another.
Not surprisingly, the Meida school took this opportunity to stand up again, and there was nothing new in their prescription for opera: respect economic laws, abolish state subsidies, and traditional opera arts should go to the market, and if an art is not accepted by the market, it will be naturally eliminated.
Raven said that these well-known Muta really did not understand artistic creation or the laws of the literary and art market, and they were discussing something they did not understand at all.
Whether from the experience of history or other places, the key to the development of the literary and art industry is precisely that practitioners should not be allowed to engage in artistic creation while worrying about attendance and box office revenue.
Art creators should, and even must, be separated from attendance, ratings, and box office, so that they can produce good works, truly make art money, and develop a good literary and art industry.
Respecting this fact is respecting the laws of the market.
To be fair, not only the Jin Opera actors, but today's Peking Opera big actors do not have much salary. Wang Rongrong, a deputy to the Beijing delegation of the National People's Congress and former head of the first troupe of the Beijing Peking Opera House, "sunned" her salary.
Wang Rongrong said that many audiences like the art of Peking Opera very much, and this year Peking Opera will enter the campus again, which shows that the government attaches great importance to Peking Opera and national art. However, the salary level of Peking Opera actors has not been very high, "like the salary of a third-level actor is about 1,000 yuan, my salary as a first-class actor is only 3,000 yuan, and the rest of the income depends on performance expenses."
Wang Rongrong said that each performance troupe has performance indicators, actors have to perform desperately in order to complete the indicators, sometimes up to 28 performances a month, the Spring Festival is also on the stage every day without rest, many actors' children are looking forward to their parents can have dinner at home.
Not only that, the actor's income is also linked to the sales situation, and if the attendance rate is not good, a play is likely to be performed in vain.
In this income situation, many popular actors are forced to start practicing the market road.
However, when actors have to "focus on grain and vegetables", can they still have the energy to focus on art?
Yu Paikunsheng Wang Peiyu became famous at a young age, and after the start of the 25-year-old he became the deputy director of the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe, which can be described as promising. In 2004, she resolutely resigned from the enviable position in the system and founded her own studio, hoping to break free and make a big difference.
However, reality gave her a head start. Since the formation of the studio, all the chores before and after the performance have to be pondered by her, the "boss", as for the play itself, sorry, I really don't have time to think about it.
Wang Peiyu has performed "The Imperial Monument Pavilion", which in Peking Opera jargon is called a work break play, that is, a scene where there is not much work in singing. It stands to reason that the break drama should be well performed, but because there is no clear climax, it is easy for the audience to feel that watching a warm swallowing water is not addictive.
Wang Peiyu pondered "The Imperial Monument Pavilion" and absorbed the commonality between Meng Xiaodong's drama recording and Tan Fuying's live recording, which are the two most representative sets of specimens of the play that have survived in the world. Boss Yu worked hard to digest the differences between the different versions in order to make the performance more suitable for him and more appealing to the audience.
Even if you want to perform a break drama, you have to work hard offstage. But when Boss Yu has to think about chores, coordinate the management of the studio, and run the relationship between Infront, where does she have the time to put so much effort in? At that time, Wang Peiyu's studio had more than 300 performances a year, and even so, it was impossible to break even...
Art that does not work hard is destined to not sell for money.
After a few years of trying to marketize, Wang Peiyu had to return to the Shanghai Peking Opera. Although Boss Yu still insisted in various interviews and variety shows in the future that Peking Opera should be marketized, the experience of failure should also make her understand that simply pulling actors out as bosses and letting opera performers bear their own profits and losses is definitely not a good road for the marketization of Peking Opera.
Chinese opera actors have never been self-financing, which is an important reason why opera has developed to this day.
Crow once wrote about the development of Peking Opera in the Republic of China and New China, focusing on the innovation of Peking Opera, and did not have much to do with the income and life of opera actors. Today we can talk about how actors made money in that era of great development of opera.
A famous comedian once said that the reason why the singing is called the boss is because he controls the food and drink of this station. However, is this statement really true?
In the Republic of China era, the income of opera actors was divided into drama and silver bags, and the settlement on the day of singing was called a play, such as an actor undertaking a certain role in a play, saying ten yuan in advance, and after he finished acting, he went backstage to remove makeup and wash his face, and the account table manager opened a share for him at that time. Silver is to negotiate official affairs according to the performance schedule, that is, the theater class (or theater) negotiates with the actors or the price of one month, half a year or one year.
The main method adopted by Beijing is drama, and the silver-wrapped system is mostly popular in other provinces.
This may seem similar to today's so-called performance fee, but it should be noted that at that time, the actor took money and had nothing to do with attendance, and whether the play sold out or not, the actor should take how much money he wanted. Even because of various things, the play was not performed, and the actor's money could not be less.
Jin Xiushan, a flower-faced actor from the banner man, sang "Yangping Pass" for the first time after going to the sea, and this job was originally the head of the flower-faced Mu Fengshan. On this day, Mu Fengshan went backstage and sat down to play a play, and the steward came over and said: "Boss Mu, you are dressed up today." Mu asked, "What's wrong?" The steward replied: "There is a Jin Xiushan, Cao Cao is dressed by him, and you will stop working today." "Resting official work is Liyuan jargon, which means that although I don't act today, the scene is still open.
At that time, it was Mu Fengshan himself who said that the general official worker made people look bad, and deliberately lowered his identity to play a Xu Huang.
Some people may say that this is because of the responsibility of the drama team, so the scene is still open, but this is not the case.
The famous Peking Opera performance artist Hao Shouchen did not have a teacher in his early years, and often performed with others, and was invited to participate in classes such as Chenghua Society, Harmony Society, Hesheng Society, Chunfu Society, Minxing Society, and Yongsheng Society.
According to his recollection, at that time, he took the second card, 100 oceans was to be paid before the performance, regardless of the attendance rate that day, whether anyone came to see the play, or even whether the performance was completed, the 100 yuan was to be taken. In time for "the wind halved and the rain was over", he also protected his harvest from drought and flood. In short, it's not the actors who take the risk.
Moreover, at that time, Peking Opera actors did not perform every day, at most two performances a week, and even if they caught up with the weekend, they rarely performed double performances (two performances), ensuring that they had the time and energy to focus on artistic creation itself.
Imagine that the Mei Party, composed of Qi Rushan, Li Shijun, Xu Boming, and other dignitaries and scholars, often interacted with Mr. Mei Lanfang and exchanged art. If Boss Mei has to act every day, how can there be time to ponder the drama with the big guys, these big guys will not always accompany Boss Mei in the background...
At that time, the silver bag system was mainly a way for Beijing celebrities to get paid when they went to perform in Tianjin and Shanghai, and there was indeed a naked capitalist element in this. Because Beijing celebrities have gained high popularity through mass media and are widely sought after in Tianjin and Shanghai, once they go south, their monthly silver package may exceed 1,000 oceans.
The theater that invited them to perform spent so much money, of course, I hope that the famous people will perform a few more performances in order to make money back through box office revenue. At that time, the first phase of the horns went to Shanghai usually for a month (the rules of the Shanghai Opera Garden were 36 days as a month, and the six days were called "help days", that is, to "help" the theater), and the Shanghai Opera Garden came to Beijing to invite the horns to talk about business on a monthly basis.
Jiao'er sang in Shanghai for one session, and can rest for half a year when he returns to Beijing. Yang Xiaolou, Mei Lanfang, Xun Huisheng, Cheng Yanqiu, Jin Shaoshan, Ma Lianliang and others often run to Shanghai.
But even so, there will never be a situation where the performance is not good, and then the theater asks the corner to return the bag.
At that time, there was still a way to hold horns, and later people often talked about it, often talking about the anecdotes and comparing it with today's rice circles.
Drama critic artist Xin Fengxia counted the outstanding names of various "famous corner societies" in her "Pear Garden Trivia", Mei Lanfang's fans formed "Mei Society", Shang Xiaoyun's called "Shang Dang", "Drunken Cloud Society", and "Listening to the Clouds"; Ticket lovers who love Xun Huisheng simply take a word from Boss Xun's early famous play - "White Peony", called "White Society"; The funniest thing should be regarded as the "emerald party" holding the emerald flowers... These club-like "ticket clubs" must have a few critics who shake the pen.
In 1943, Tong Zhiling and Yan Huizhu faced each other, and the warlord Fan Shaozeng took the trouble to buy a whole row of tickets. The two ended the confrontation on stage, the respective supporters in the audience were still fighting, Tong Zhiling's fans paid her to make a movie, Yan Huizhu's fans were not to be outdone, and immediately paid for her to make a movie.
However, in addition to this kind of popularity, there is also an economic favor, which is rarely mentioned by later generations. What is economic popularity? It's just giving money directly.
Jin Rong loves and hates the Ten Perfection Jin Shaoshan, loves his singing voice, and hates him for ignoring his love. At that time, Jin Rong invited Jin Shaoshan to perform in Shanghai with a monthly package of silver 2,000 oceans, but he did not expect that Jin Shaoshan would be late and refuse to perform for three days after he came, completely not giving face to the underworld bosses.
Some descendants said that Jin Shaoshan was born as a bannerman and looked down on the gang leader, and some said that Jin Ye was too addicted to big cigarettes and could not get on stage. No matter what, Jin Rong was angry and blasted Jin Shaoshan away.
But not long after, by chance, Jin Rong heard Jin Shaoshan's play "Lock Five Dragons", and the yellow bell Da Lu and the dragon groaned and hooked the soul of the big guy again. It is said that at that time, Jin Rong slapped his thigh and shouted: It must be him!
Therefore, after Jin Shaoshan returned to Beijing, Jin Rong gave 600 oceans a month, bluntly saying that whether he acted or not, these 600 pieces were a lot.
More exaggerated examples are.
For example, Wang Shaozhai, the giant of Tianjin Salt Bank, likes to listen to the play. In 1931, the beautiful Lu Sujuan, who was born in the eight hutongs, became popular by singing Mei Pai, and for a while she was as famous as Xue Yanqin, known as "Talking about art first pushes Xue Yanqin, and only Lu Sujuan is the one who discusses color." Wang Shaozhai admired Lu very much, and did not hesitate to spend a lot of money, providing Lu Yin Yuan 10,000 yuan a month for daily expenses, and specially allocated 80,000 silver yuan as Lu's performing arts fund.
In the Republican era, although the income of opera actors was chaotic, they all had a characteristic that they guaranteed to completely isolate the actors from market risks, regardless of whether the final performance earned money or not, and did not delay the actors' normal earning of money.
In New China, this is even more so, the government has unified various incomes through various troupes, and actors have been graded and paid, although not as complicated as before, but more stable.
Like the well-known Peking Opera master Mr. Mei Lanfang, his monthly salary reaches 2100 yuan, the first of the "Four Great Xu Sheng" famous Peking Opera master Ma Lianliang has a monthly salary of 1700 yuan, Tan Fuying, one of the "Four Great Xu Sheng", has a monthly salary of 1600 yuan, the salary of Qiu Shengrong, a master of copper hammer flower face, is 1500 yuan, Zhang Junqiuyue, one of the four famous Dans, has a salary of 1450 yuan, and the famous martial artist Li Shaochun has a monthly salary of 1000 yuan...
At that time, the famous Wudan Guan Sushuang was unwilling to take too high a salary because he held a leadership position, and frequently asked his superiors for salary reductions, and under seven drops and eight reductions, he finally dropped to the lowest level of literary and artistic grading - 280 yuan.
You know, in the 50s, this was all high salary, because the salary of teachers was only a few hundred dollars.
Needless to say, the income of new Chinese actors has nothing to do with box office and attendance. What the country needs is for artists to have no worries and concentrate on artistic creation, so that they can produce good works.
It can be seen that in the Republic of China and New China, in the era of great development of opera art, actors do not need to consider how to sell the opera for money.
Back to what I said at the beginning of the article, how should the literary and art industry or cultural industry be marketized?
A sentence by the famous Korean screenwriter Kim Eun-hee has been widely praised by domestic film and television self-media in recent years, she said that it is good to create a play for Netflix, because "Netflix never gives advice, they only give money."
The point of many people's interpretation of this sentence is that Netflix will not interfere in the creation, but this sentence also implies a layer of meaning, that is, Netflix will not affect the income of creators because of the ratings of the play, because making money from the show is Netflix's task, not the creator's task.
To develop the cultural industry, we must respect the value of creators, let creators have the conditions not to be affected by the market, and engage in creation in a relatively stable environment, so that we can truly do a good job in marketization. Netflix understood this truth, so Netflix succeeded, and many bosses who started in labor-intensive industries and so-called high-tech industries did not understand this truth, so they screwed up the cultural industry.
There is nothing wrong with the marketization of opera, but we must first understand what is marketization. The way to marketize opera should not be to let actors take responsibility for their own profits and losses, let the genre fend for themselves, the real way to marketize opera should be so that actors do not need to worry about income and box office, and can concentrate on artistic creation, so as to achieve success in the market.
If you want to understand the literary and art industry, there is still a long way to go.
Resources:
"Old Jingling World Talk": Scenes and Bao Yin
Yuan Xuefen: Be an innocent person, and sing seriously
Fishing method Chong: how much can the Peking Opera celebrities of the Republic of China make money
Willow fluttered away: how many people did she offend this time in order to add drama