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Wen 丨 Editor Look at the original classmates
preface
"Dawn of Sorrow" is an opera adapted by playwright Kong Yuan based on his own personal experience.
Created from the perspective of a survivor and victor, it is divided into three acts, longing, dawn, longing and epilogue, and every scene, every character, and every singing is impressive.
Next, through the analysis of the character of "Lin Mei" in "Dawn of Sorrow", Ohara will find the historical value and era value of the character "Lin Mei" on the spread and influence of contemporary opera.
"Lin Mei" Li's character image shaping music creation analysis
Lin Mei is the heroine in "Dawn of Sorrow", and the entire opera revolves around her life, covering different stages such as student years, war times and peacetime, creating a more three-dimensional image of Lin Mei, she is willful, direct, brave and affectionate.
Throughout the play, Lin Mei has 18 singing sections, including 5 arias, 1 declarant narrative, 5 choruses with everyone, 6 duets with others and 1 quartet.
According to the main content of the opera, "Dawn of Sorrow" is divided into longing (21 sections), dawn (11 sections), longing (7 sections) and epilogue (1 section), as well as 2 interacts, for a total of 43 sections.
These 43 passages are rich in musical expressions, including arias, canonical tunes, duets, quartets and choruses.
Composer Guan Xia uses major keys throughout the opera, and basically adopts the musical structure of Western opera, which shows the "musical image" of each character through music according to the progress of the plot and the emotional tone of each act.
The whole opera begins in E-flat major, then moves to D major, and ends with an open termination, the opera unfolds in grand music, in which a pure and beautiful piano melody appears in the 30th bar, which sets the emotional tone for the whole play, presenting a pure and beautiful world, which is what this group of young students pursue all their lives.
In "Dawn of Sorrow", there is a musical motive in two-bar units that lasts for 16 bars, the melody line of this motive is undulating, but relatively single, the rhythm is simple and rhythmic, giving it singing.
The music is pure, beautiful and simple, coupled with the sound of children reading and frolicking in the school, as if telling the infinite hope of people for a happy and healthy life at the dawn of the time, creating a warm background for the opera as a whole.
"Cheer and Dance" and "You and I Will Never Love Each Other and Never Separate" are duets between Lin Mei and Tahara, the first duet begins in F major and ends with a closing end.
The victory was getting closer and closer, and Lin Mei and Tahara were extremely excited, and they ran to share the news of the victory with the people around them.
The composer uses a variety of rhythmic changes and motivational progressions, and the accompaniment uses column chords with small dot rhythms to express the excited inner emotions of Hayashi Mei and Tahara.
"You and I will never love each other, never separate" is an excerpt sung by Lin Mei when comforting Tahara, in F major, closing and ending in the face of losing his mother immersed in the pain of Tahara, Lin Mei tells him that he is not lonely and will never separate.
"Facing the Dawn in Sight" is in E-flat major, while "You Are My Hope" is in A-flat major, these two arias are sung by Lin Mei in the first act, arias are generally lyrical, the melody fluctuates greatly, and there is singing.
But in this section, the composer also gives a dynamic weak start, small attachment points, first eight and back sixteen and other dense rhythms, this singing state between speaking and singing, closer to life.
When these two singing states appear in the singing at the same time, Lin Mei in the audience's mind seems to be more real, "You Are My Hope" is when Tahara learned that her mother died on the battlefield and was grieving, Lin Mei sent the warmest comfort and encouragement.
In the singing section, he told his deep affection, and in the singing section, in addition to the rhythm type, he slowed down to express Lin Mei's sympathetic sadness.
"Qu Meng", "We Can't Wait for Victory", "Are You Afraid of Getting Your Hands Dirty", the first piece of the choral repertoire in the first act of the opera, "Qu Meng", first switched to E flat major, and when Lin Mei began to sing, it switched to A flat major and stopped.
Everyone learned that Lin Mei, Tian Yuan, and Yuan Siming had the opportunity to study in Moscow, and everyone shared joy and a chorus song full of hope for the future.
"We Can't Wait for Victory" is in the key of E flat, closing and terminating, everyone faced setbacks, did not give up hope, signed up for the army, gave up the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union, and agreed together to win the final victory for the motherland.
The last word of this singing phrase falls on the strong beat and long beat rhythm, highlighting everyone's firm sense of revolutionary ideals, the small point rhythm of the right hand of the accompanying voice is full of power and urgency, and the 8-degree column interval motive of the left hand is full of power.
Analysis of the performance creation of "Lin Mei"
Since its premiere at the Beijing Grand Theatre in 2001, "Dawn of the Tragic Gun" has been performed in multiple versions, with different characteristics of the actors, but each with its own merits.
Regarding the definition of actor, the modern Chinese dictionary mentions: "Actors can be divided into two kinds of true color actors and character actors, which refer to playing a certain role in film and television, advertising, drama and acrobatics, or performing full-time."
The role can generally be played through dance, singing or just voice, and sometimes with street performers".
In September 2001, the opera "The Dawn of the Tragic Gun" was performed for the first time as a gift dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party. The lineup of the premiere is also very strong, the protagonist Lin Mei is played by actor Peng Liyuan, and her mentor is Professor Jin Tielin.
Opera actors are different from film and television actors in that their entire creative process must not only "act" but also "sing" and "act", as an actor, they need to have strong concentration, ingenious and flexible emotional memory opening dramatic actions, changing and exquisite performance rhythm, light and rapid observation, emotional character shaping and other professional qualities, in order to be called "performance".
The opera "Dawn of Sorrow" has distinct characteristics of the times during the performance, from the costumes of each actor to the background of each stage, and every look, every nod, every turn, and every hug of the actors in it is very natural and just right.
Lin Mei was a lively and cheerful, carefree, and vigorous young female student in school, singing, dancing, and acting during this period were childish, with mostly small movements, and a lot of movement times, and the sense of instability in adolescence was expressed.
When Lin Mei was on the battlefield, her role changed, and both her pace and voice became more calm and firm.
Lin Mei became an old man 50 years later, when the audience could see the actor's movements become soft, twisted and slow.
Actors should grasp the differences between Lin Mei's different ages and different identities, which is the most difficult place to grasp as Lin Mei, this character has a large age span and is a main line in the overall situation.
Peng Liyuan used a different performance rhythm, and the lively jumps during the campus period to the vicissitudes of the steps 50 years later, including the small movements of the hands and the changes in the eyes are just right.
"Singing" is a necessary skill as a vocal performer, but also a very high standard, with the development of social economy, the domestic people's standards for spiritual needs are getting higher and higher, and opera as one of the more systematic forms of artistic practice, the requirements for sound are very high.
The simple use of ethnic singing, although more intimate, but as the dramatic tension of the plot increases, the voice is inevitably dry and thin. If you only use bel canto singing, it is difficult to achieve the correct cavity of the words, which violates the aesthetic habit of Chinese advocating clear words.
Therefore, in "In the Dawn of Sorrow", the actors absorbed the advantages of bel canto singing, while maintaining the characteristics of clear words in national singing, so that the voice has both intimacy and depth and thickness.
This not only requires the singer to master the basic singing skills, but also requires the singer to change according to the changes in the character's mood and mood, and to use music to perform drama, which also requires life experience and observation.
The enlightenment of "Dawn of Sorrow" to the creation of contemporary Chinese national opera
The first work with a strong "red" nature since the 21st century, "Dawn of Sorrow", its value is reflected in innovation, compared with other successful red works, "Dawn of Sorrow" has different degrees of innovation in various fields.
Although it also has the red gene, but the literary theme of "love and death" is selected, the red gene is not the theme to be expressed in this opera, but the carrier that connects the story, which is very rare in the past.
A number of classic works created by Guan Xia, such as "The White-Haired Girl", "The Party's Daughter", "Honghu Red Guard", etc., do not choose the common opera plate cavity and local folk song materials in the musical materials, and the unique creative method takes the opera to another height.
Thirdly, the object of "Dawn of Sorrow" is a group of young students, rather than the heroic characters of the past "high", "big" and "complete", and using them as a carrier of opera expression is a breakthrough and innovation
summary
To sum up, the opera "Dawn of Sorrow" was born at the turn of the new century, created to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and finally staged in Beijing through the efforts of the entire creative team for 4 years.
The opera "Dawn of Sorrow" takes the life of the main character "Lin Mei" as the main development line, and whether from the perspective of static artistic creation or dynamic artistic creation, the historical background has a profound impact on the character creation.
The character design conforms to the characteristics of the era at that time, and is more full and three-dimensional through artistic processing.
Liu Zhongde's view is that the role creation and shaping of opera must first meet the needs of being able to fully express the theme and values of the opera itself, then to the choice of form, music creation, drama creation, and finally to the interpretation of the role itself.
Therefore, in the process of creating this opera, the composer and the playwright have been maintaining exchanges and communication, striving for music not to be separated from the drama.
With the efforts of the main creators, great breakthroughs have been made in terms of theme selection, character design, music materials, and musical language, and the success of this opera creation is also a success of innovative practice, which provides a good reference for later opera creators.
Through the exploration of the creation of "Dawn of Sorrow", it is concluded that if national opera in the new era wants to find breakthroughs and development in the diverse environment of China, it must take innovation as the breakthrough, maintain the integrity of opera form, be rooted in China's cultural soil, and meet the aesthetic needs of the Chinese people, which is crucial.