Text / Editor: Nirvana
Cheng Yanqiu, a master of Peking Opera performing arts, has created countless female images in his artistic life that make the audience look back and remember.
The artist I talked about today has a melodious and graceful singing voice, which makes people feel that the aftermath is endless. He raised his hand, threw his foot, and said every tone on the stage, all of which fully demonstrated the unique beauty of the Orient and created a dazzling image of Danjiao. He is Cheng Yanqiu, known as the "Four Famous Dans" of Chinese Peking Opera.
one
Cheng Yanqiu's juvenile photo
Cheng Yanqiu, Manchu, formerly known as Chenglin, with the milk name Xiaoshi, is ranked fourth. He is a descendant of the Qing Dynasty Wang clan, born in Qimen, his ancestors were a member of Dolgon's subordinates, when he entered the customs with Dolgon, died on the battlefield, his head was different, the Qing court in order to commend his merits, specially made a golden head to give a funeral, the glory of the ancestors, shade the descendants, in the Daxiangfeng Hutong in the Desheng Gate in Beijing, divided the house.
Chenglin's mother once said, "The whole family entered the pass by the dragon's tail." ”
Chenglin's father, Rongshou, has the title of "general", but he is not doing his job, he is carrying a cage and a bird every day, and lives the life of a son-in-law. However, the good times did not last long, and due to the financial collapse of the late Qing Dynasty, they could no longer afford this large number of banner people, so their income gradually decreased.
Rong Shou died of illness when Chenglin was three years old. The family was empty, and his mother had to move out of the ancestral house with Chenglin, and her life deteriorated. In the end, he lived in Tianqiao City, where the poor people lived in Beijing at that time, and his family was surrounded by walls, and he was completely reduced to an urban poor.
Left Cheng Yanqiu Zhong Gao Qingkui The one who stands is Rong Butterfly Immortal
At this time, there happened to be a Peking Opera actor in the neighborhood, and seeing that the mother and son were having a hard time, he suggested that Chenglin join the pear orchard. He was introduced to the home of Peking Opera actor Rong Diexian as a "hand-handled" apprentice, and wrote a note stating that he would help the master for one year after the expiration of the seven-year period, that is, eight years. The teacher is responsible for all the food, clothing, and housing of the students, and the silver package of the income from singing should belong to the teacher.
Before Chenglin joined the school, his mother kept discussing with him, asking him if he was willing to go, worried that he would not be able to stand the suffering in the troupe.
Little Chenglin thought that their family was not a Liyuan family, and it was good that people could accept him, and besides, life at home was so difficult, and having one person would reduce a burden on his mother, so he resolutely agreed.
When Chenglin went out, his mother repeatedly instructed him: "Be cautious when you speak, don't take advantage of others, especially money." Cheng Yanqiu has firmly remembered these words all his life and followed his mother's teachings.
After Rong Diexian saw Chenglin, he thought that this child was good, so he accepted him.
After entering, Rong Diexian changed Chenglin's name according to the rules of the pear garden, and Chenglin was surnamed Cheng, and his stage name was Ju Nong.
Rong Diexian was a famous singer at the time, but he treated his apprentices very harshly, Cheng was tantamount to a servant under his disciples, and he was whipped occasionally if he didn't go by the way, so Cheng Yanqiu was bullied in his childhood. Later, many people recalled Cheng Yanqiu's experience, but Cheng Yanqiu's self-description did not mention this experience, but only described the difficulties he had when practicing basic skills, and his character is indeed worthy of recognition.
However, through several years of hard study under the Rongdie Immortal Sect, Cheng Yanqiu has indeed laid a very solid artistic foundation.
Luo Gangong and Cheng Yanqiu
At this time, Rong Diexian according to the characteristics of Cheng Yanqiu, let him develop to Danxing, after completing his studies, he performed on stage, and became a blockbuster, at that time there was a Beijing celebrity, Peking Opera playwright Luo Gangong, one day after listening to Cheng Yanqiu's play, he saw Cheng Yanqiu's potential, so he found Rong Diexian to redeem himself for him, and broke away from the master-apprentice relationship.
Then Luo Gagong introduced him to the famous Peking Opera artist Wang Yaoqing, and talked about the drama for him, and soon worshiped Mei Lanfang as his teacher.
two
Luo Gagong and the teenager Cheng Yanqiu
Luo Gangong also urged Cheng Yanqiu to urge and encourage, every day at dawn, he had to call Cheng up, go to the south of the overpass to shout in the area of Mitai, come back to the huqin, and hang his voice.
After lunch, I hurried to Mei's house, because Mei Lanfang invited a Kunqu Opera teacher, so she learned Kunqu Opera there. After dinner, he went to the theater, and after the play, he asked Luo Gugong to teach him if there were any mistakes when performing on stage, and then walked to Wang Yaoqing's house, because Wang Jiao's opera is always in the second half of the night, so Cheng usually always goes back to sleep at four or five o'clock in the morning the next day. In an instant, the east is getting brighter, and I have to get up and shout again.
It can be said that when he first appeared, due to Luo Gall's strict supervision of him and his own conscious efforts, he could not establish a solid foundation. Cheng Yanqiu emerged at the age of twenty. Liyuan colleagues unanimously recognized him as a genius, but in fact, his achievements were completely due to hard work, coupled with the selfless guidance of Luo Gonggong, Wang Yaoqing, Mei Lanfang and other mentors and friends, to create a Cheng Yanqiu. After he became famous, he changed Yanqiu to Yanqiu.
At this time, Luo Gagong began to tailor new scripts for Cheng Yanqiu, which not only opened up a new way out of Peking Opera, but also created conditions for Cheng Yanqiu's emergence.
As a mentor and friend, when Luo was sick in the hospital in his later years, Cheng Yanqiu went to visit almost every day and bore all the medical expenses.
Cheng Yanqiu also worshipped the famous boxer Gao Ziyun in the late Qing Dynasty as a teacher, learned martial arts skills, and integrated them into the drama. It was only taught to three people in the pear orchard, and Cheng Yanqiu was one of them. Later, Cheng Yanqiu added many movements of this set of swordsmanship to his performance.
Cheng Yanqiu is also proficient in boxing, at that time, several policemen bullied him, but he was beaten to pieces, and his kung fu can be seen.
叁
In the fall of 1922, Cheng Yanqiu made his first appearance in Shanghai. This time, Shanghai Yistage originally sent someone to Beijing to invite Yu Shuyan to act, and at this time Yu Shuyan was already very famous, and he hung the first card and took Cheng Yanqiu to hang the second card. 18-year-old Cheng Yanqiu came to Shanghai for the first time and had never seen the world of Shanghai, so he was naturally very excited.
What he didn't expect was that the accident pushed him from the second card to the first card and picked the class independently.
It turned out that for some reason, the military and police in Shanghai made trouble with Yu Shuyan, and Yu Shuyan had no choice but to secretly buy a train ticket and go back to Beijing, leaving Cheng Yanqiu in Shanghai.
Chen Shutong's old age photo
Luo Gagong was Cheng Yanqiu's benefactor who independently stepped onto the Peking Opera stage. Faced with this sudden change, Luo Gangong didn't know what to do for a while, so he immediately went to his old friend Mr. Chen Shutong to discuss how to deal with it. Cheng Yanqiu seemed to be confident in everyone's questions, and he said categorically: "If you ask my opinion, I will go down! As for whether you are sure or not, it depends on how the box office sells tickets!"
So the stage boss also notified the audience with the sign "Boss Yu Shuyan stopped performing due to illness, and Boss Cheng Yanqiu performed on the first card".
Cheng Yanqiu is determined to hang the first card in Shanghai alone, and he naturally has his confidence in his heart, the first eight scenes (plus matinee on Sunday), in addition to "Yutang Chun" and "Hongni Pass" and other specialty plays, he also performed "Nengren Temple", "Imperial Tablet Pavilion", "Qi Shuanghui", "Fishing and Killing", "Drunk" and Kunqu Opera "Sifan", etc., the audience praised it, it can be said that it was an instant hit, especially after the singing of "Yutang Chun", the audience commented: "Yanqiu sang "Yutang Chun", and it is rare for someone to dare to sing this play for a while. ”
I performed like this for a month, and I couldn't stop. In order to congratulate Cheng Yanqiu on his successful performance, more than 30 people, including Jian Zhaonan, Gan Hanchen, Kang Youwei, Wu Changshuo, Zhu Xiaolan, Yuan Bokui, Zhang Yishan, and Wang Pingsan, celebrities in Shanghai's cultural circles, gathered in Yuyuan, and everyone toasted to celebrate, painted and chanted poems, and congratulated Cheng Yanqiu on his success. Chen Shutong joked to Cheng Yanqiu in private: "This is Yu Shuyan who gave you a chance. ”
肆
During the Anti-Japanese War, Cheng Yanqiu was quite stylish, and after the fall of Beiping, he refused to sing for the Japanese, and the jealous people used this as an excuse to complain to the Japanese that Cheng Yanqiu was unwilling to cooperate. So the Japanese invaders issued an order not to broadcast Cheng's singing on the radio, so during the Anti-Japanese War, Cheng's voice was never heard on the radio, and people who didn't know the inside story thought it was very strange.
Just like his master Mei Lanfang has a beard and a clear will.
It is said that during the Anti-Japanese War, in order to take care of the lives of his colleagues in the theater troupe, he planned to go out to perform, but when he was at Beiping East Station, he encountered insults and blackmail from Japanese puppet minions and car police. Cheng Yanqiu couldn't bear it anymore, and fought with them with his fists, but the police didn't expect Cheng Yanqiu to have a good kung fu and was beaten to the ground.
But these people are bad enough. Before running, he actually chiseled all the boxes containing Peking Opera outfits and poured ink, resulting in all the consignment heads. Cheng Yanqiu was furious, remembering that the national disaster was at the head, how could she be a businesswoman who "sang backyard flowers across the river", so she left the theater world, like Master Mei Lanfang with a beard, he thought that "it is difficult to act, and it is even more difficult to be innocent, but if you are not innocent, how can you act seriously?"
So he retreated to the Qinglong Bridge outside Beiping City and changed the song to farming.
In the second year of Cheng Yanqiu's retreat and the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he made a radio speech on the Beiping Radio Station full of joy of victory, angrily accusing the Japanese invaders of massacres, plunder, rape, torture, arson, and other heinous crimes committed in the occupied areas of our country.
He pointed out in particular that the Japanese invaders instructed the Liyuan Association to ask him to "perform for charity" for the donation of airplanes, saying: "What a cruel means it is to ask us Chinese to act, and they use the money they get to buy plane bombs and then kill our Chinese compatriots." As a conscientious Chinese, I must never engage in such criminal acts of aiding the enemy, slaughtering my own compatriots, and having no humanity. So I didn't want to die, and they didn't allow me to play my records on the radio... He spoke impassionedly, and the listeners applauded.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Cheng Shi reappeared on the stage, first at the Beiping Branch of the Liaojihei Demobilization Association to fund the Northeast righteous people to return to their hometowns, and then for the relief of the flood in Guangxi, and then for business performances. At the end of the autumn of 1946, at the invitation of Shanghai Tianchan Stage, he went to Shanghai to perform and cooperated with Tan Fuying and Ye Shenglan.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the art and cultural circles presented a thriving scene. Cheng Yanqiu began to be active on the Peking Opera stage again, and there were Cheng School artists everywhere.
In 1950, Cheng Yanqiu met Marshal He Long during his performance in Xi'an. Marshal He Long heard Cheng Yanqiu's chivalrous "story" and presented him with a captured Japanese saber. In 1951, when Cheng Yanqiu returned from an inspection trip to the southwest and passed through Wuhan, he learned that the local plane that donated to resist US aggression and aid Korea was still a few screws, and "immediately ignored the hard work and sang a compulsory opera in Hankou for five days in a row to support the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea."
The chivalrous and enthusiastic Cheng Yanqiu insisted on helping his peers in the pear orchard, regardless of high and low. The actor who played with him was sick, and he would always visit the band members in person, and he would have to ask about the difficulties in life as long as he knew. No matter on or off the stage, Cheng Yanqiu always has a heroic demeanor. In times of crisis, he retreated from the enemy to help the poor and the weak.
In peacetime, he devoted all his energy to the cause of Peking Opera art and to the people. He has had a profound and significant impact not only on the role of Peking Opera but also on the development of Peking Opera and opera.
Cheng Yanqiu attended the first session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as a specially invited representative in 1949. In 1950, he was elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress and a member of the presidium of the Council of the Chinese Opera Association. In 1953, he was appointed vice president of the Chinese Academy of Drama. In 1957, he was introduced by Premier Zhou Enlai to join the Communist Party of China.
summary
In a movie before, I can't remember which one, when the master taught the disciples, he said that sentence, I still remember, "If you want to be noble in front of people, you will be guilty of being punished later." As the saying goes, one minute on stage, ten years off the stage, this kind of almost cruel basic skills honing, better than ordinary people's comprehension ability, as well as pioneering and innovative, in order to achieve a good artist.
Today, when traditional opera is generally declining, I think what we need to learn is the spirit of the old artists, and what we need to remember is the artistic enjoyment they once brought us, the tireless pursuit and innovation of the cause, and the style that a Chinese should have when the country is in trouble.
Bibliography:
Zhou Yunlong: Anecdote of Cheng Yanqiu's life
Cheng Yanqiu: My learning experience
Ma Changlin: Cheng Yanqiu's "skills" shocked the beach