How Yan Huizhu Climbed the Peak of Meipai Art (3)

Yan Huizhu started from the analysis of the traditional play "Sacrifice River" sung by Mei Lanfang in her early years, and believed that Mr. Mei's early days were mainly based on inheriting tradition, and was gradually and gradually on the basis of respecting tradition and accepting tradition. She analyzed the singing method of Mei Lanfang's "Sacrifice of the River", the line cavity is neat, concise and powerful, the words are sonorous, just more than soft, really as strong as a golden stone. It is completely in line with the traditional norms of Tsing Yi. It is very similar to Mr. Chen Delin's singing style. Why Mei Lanfang emphasized inheritance in the early days, Yan Huizhu quoted a passage of Mei Lanfang's own words in the article, which can be described as deep and pertinent (qing, please. Kenshin: The place where the bones and bones are combined, the parable is the most important key. "The creation of art must be carried out on the basis of tradition. If an actor does not have a broad vision and does not digest some traditional artistic achievements, it is impossible for an actor to have a good means of expression, which is equivalent to creating out of thin air. This is not only an obstacle to the progress of art, but also dangerous. Mei Lanfang's words are still thought-provoking.

When Mei Lanfang summed up her sixty years of artistic practice, she once said two sentences to the effect that the first thirty years were killed, and the last thirty years were killed. These two clear and easy to understand words contain profound aesthetic principles. "Kill in" and "kill out" are a kind of opposing unity. Any classical art, "traditional" this room, you must first "kill" into it, familiar with everything in this room, master its various elements and essential laws, and then it is possible to "kill" out, so that change must have its own, the new must have a source, inherit without mud, out of the new without deviating from the "spectrum". As Mr. Liu Haisu said: "When the ancient reaches the extreme, it is new to the extreme." Now there are some comrades who know nothing about Peking Opera, and only look inside the door of this room, or go inside and "slip" around like a flower, and then shout loudly: "Oh! Isn't that what it is! Obsolete, obsolete, must be changed. "Where do they know that Mei Lanfang has paid the price for a full sixty years."

When Yan Huizhu talked about Mei Lanfang's singing voice and performance style in the middle period, she used eight words: "from simple to complex, rigid and soft together". This period was the excitement period of Mei Lanfang's artistic creation. Yan Huizhu believes that Mei Lanfang learned many Kunqu operas when she was young, including his research on painting and dance and other different art forms, so that on this basis, he created new plays with equal emphasis on song and dance, such as "Tiannu Scattered Flowers", "Chang'e Running Moon", "Magu Xianshou", and "Taizhen Wai biography". In order to meet the needs of the new opera, Mei Lanfang first continuously developed and enriched the tunes of Peking Opera. Yan Huizhu took "Chang'e Running Moon" as an example to explain that Mei Lanfang, in order to show Chang'e's loneliness of living alone in Guanghan after drinking, pioneered the most lyrical "Nan Zizi". [Nan Zi] was originally transplanted from the zi zi, and after Mei Lanfang sang it, it was completely Peking opera. Yan Huizhu also said:

"Mr. Mei not only created the tune of [Nan Zizi], a Peking opera, but also very flexible in its use. Like in the play "Overlord Farewell", he used "Nan Zizi" to express a desolate mood. As soon as we hear "See the king sleeping soundly in the tent and his clothes, I am out of the tent here and scatter sorrows------" we will immediately think of the ancient battlefield in the desert, the sad autumn night, the melancholy and melancholy mood of Yu Meiren walking alone under the moon, and the poetic mood. In the play "Wang Chun'e", Mr. Mei created another style of "Nan Zizi" to express the atmosphere of joy and surprise. Wang Chun'e was surprised and delighted to see her husband, who had been dead for thirteen years, and suddenly came back alive. Mr. Mei's arrangement here uses a few high notes and more fancy cavities to push the plot to a climax at once. From these three plays, it can be seen that the same is the "South Pole", but the effect of the three is completely different. ”

Here, although Yan Huizhu analyzes Meipai art only by dissecting one of the artistic cells of Peking Opera (Nan Zizi), its essence has touched on the key questions we mentioned earlier about whether opera art should shape characters and how to shape characters. Media theory is a scientific method for studying the essential characteristics of opera. Since the main material medium of opera is poetry, song and dance, his means of shaping artistic image must be different from other types of art (especially drama), forming a set of "drama song and dance, song and dance drama" freehand performance system, which Mr. Huang Zuolin calls "Mei's system". This "system" is not based on and aimed at reproducing the picture of life to arouse people's understanding and inducing emotions, it focuses more on refining the "formal beauty" of art to eliminate all naturalism. Therefore, an opera actor, only when the use of his (her) skills is not a problem, art can be elevated to the embodiment of personal temperament and character charm. Today, there is a phenomenon on the stage of Peking Opera, which is worthy of our attention. The main manifestation is that there are more and more "artists" who use realist theories and techniques to portray opera characters, and they adopt a one-minded and nihilistic attitude towards tradition, whether intentional or not. This is very worrying. In this sense, the spirit of Yan Huizhu xuemei deserves our attention.

In the article, Yan Huizhu also took dramas such as "Tai Zhen Wai Biography" and "Life and Death Hate" as examples to analyze why any kind of tune and singing voice, as long as it is sung by Mei Lanfang, is immediately popular and followed by the group? Why is what Mei Lanfang created so popular? She believes:

First of all, Mr. Mei respects the laws of artistic innovation that he himself has discovered, respects both tradition and the artistic achievements and labor of his predecessors, absorbs the artistic essence of his predecessors to enrich himself, step by step, step by step, step by step; secondly, Mr. Mei respects the appreciation habits of the masses and can adapt to the needs of the audience. Because Mr. Mei correctly understood the dialectical relationship between inheritance and innovation, rather than fabricating it out of thin air and making it behind closed doors, the new cavity he designed was novel and not divorced from the Style of Peking Opera, and was quickly accepted by the vast audience. ”

We found that Yan Huizhu repeatedly quoted Mei Lanfang's theory on how to correctly handle inheritance and innovation in artistic creation, and expressed her own experience of learning "Mei". The views of the two masters and apprentices have reached an incomparable match.

Yan Huizhu said of Mei Lanfang's performing arts in her later years:

Mr. Mei's singing in his later years has reached the realm of pure fire. One of his last rehearsals in his later years was "Mu Guiying Hangs Up". This play is almost no new cavity, let alone a place to show off novelty, just like Qi Baishi's paintings, rotten and flat, if you appreciate it deeply, it is easy to find the rich inner reserves. ”

Finally, she used the metaphor of Mei Lanfang's singing method in three periods with calligraphy: Mr. Mei's "early singing method was in block letters, middle-aged was xingshu, and in his later years it was cursive." True so-called: the deeper you go into the mountains, the more you ask. This insight of Yan Huizhu is a scientific summary of her careful study of Mei. According to the original work Fei Sanjin