In October 1952, at the First National Opera Convention held in Beijing, the famous Qin actor Liu Yuzhong won the first prize as an actor for playing Bai Maolin in "Selling Paintings and Splitting Doors" and Playing Hu Yan in "You Guishan". When Premier Zhou Enlai presented him with an award, he asked kindly: "Are you Liu Yuzhong?" He nodded excitedly. Was your father an actor? "Yes, Prime Minister." "Your father's name is Carpenter Red, right?" Liu Yuzhong could not imagine that Premier Zhou knew himself in this way, and he was so excited that he burst into tears. That night, Liu Yuzhong lay in bed tossing and turning, and could not sleep all night. The situation of his father Liu Lijie and his past, like a movie, reappeared in front of his eyes one scene after another.
Liu Lijie, Ziying, a native of Fanliu Village, Yujin Town, Lintong County, Shaanxi, was born in a peasant family in the first year of the Qing Dynasty (1874 AD). At the age of 7, he entered a private school. At the age of 15, due to the poverty of his family life, he could not continue to go to school, so he went to Jingyang County to learn carpentry. Liu Lijie has loved Qin Lu since childhood, and because he often watches plays, he has written down many zero-paragraph drama words. Whenever the sun sets, he opens his voice in the shop and sings loudly, chatting for his own pleasure. At this time, many Qin fans will gather outside the door, and everyone will quietly enjoy his oratorio. Liu Lijie is talented and intelligent, and has a rare good voice. As time went on, he sang better and better, and the audience grew. With the enthusiastic encouragement of the masses, he finally gave up his already quite skilled carpentry skills, and at the age of 22, he went to the Kuisheng class (later renamed Huaqing class) led by Hu Jiayan Hu Kui in Lintong County to study opera, and became the same class brother with the famous Xiao Dan of Qin, Chen Yunong (known as "Qin Cavity Wang Yaoqing"), who was 4 years younger. Therefore, the community gave him a stage name "Carpenter Red".
Liu Lijie is of medium stature, has a clean and handsome appearance, has a dignified demeanor, is usually silent and taciturn, treats people kindly, and is polite. Although he was late in learning art and was not good at relying on the handle, the singing voice was thick and sweet, full of energy, and the pronunciation was accurate, "the opening is full of palace full of tone, extremely melodious." Therefore, he can sing very well in all the plays with heavy singing, such as "Bayitu", "Li Ling Monument", "Let the Capital City", "Qianlong Dagong", "Yu Rang Chop Robe", "Yellow River Array", "Anti-Xuzhou" and so on, which are his masterpieces.
At that time, singing on the grass stage of the venue, thousands of people under the stage, and there were snacks such as buckwheat flour and Zhen cakes around them, often noisy and unstoppable. However, as soon as Liu Lijie appeared, the audience was suddenly silent. If you play "Li Ling Monument", every time "Yang Jiye comes to tears and blood, bows his head and does not complain about Heavenly Lord, since he gave birth to a thief Renmei, he should not give birth to old Yang Ye again." The four singing words were just finished, and the audience immediately responded with thunderous applause. If the performance of "BayiTu", the audience only needs to listen to the two sentences of the hanging chart, "Fortunately, the wind is clear and the moon is clear tonight, and the poor martyrs are killed", and they will return satisfied.
In the past, the rural temple fairs in the Guanzhong area often performed a stage play, that is, to build two stages not far apart in the square, and at the same time invite two opera classes to sing to compare the height. If the audience is attracted by the acting skills of a certain drama class and gathers under the stage of this drama class, this drama class wins. The winner is immediately given a gift. The losers were ridiculed and despised by the villagers, discredited, and even bargained little. Therefore, those who sing to the stage drama have all kinds of ways to compete for glitches. Chengcheng County High Temple, every Year in March, will sing the right stage. Once, the Weinan Shaohua Village Drama Class was invited to perform. In order to be able to sing and win, the Shaohua opera class spent a lot of money to hire Liu Lijie and said that he would help sing for fifteen days. On this day, Liu Lijie rushed to the venue; Shaohua Ban was performing "Wu Qi's Return to China", and most of the audience had been pulled by the other side's drama class. Liu Lijie hurriedly disguised himself as Wu Qi's father, tied up to the city, and only sang two sentences, "Go up to the city tower with your eyes, Wu Qi'er, you are back", and the audience under the opposite stage immediately rushed to this side of the stage like a tide. When people recognized liu Lijie, there was a sudden cry. The whole village immediately carried food boxes, held gifts, and persuaded wine and rice. At that time, Liu Lijie's acting skills and high reputation can be seen.
After the Xinhai Revolution, Liu Lijie served as a teacher and coach (director) in 1913 at the Hazel Society. In 1915, he joined the Yi Folk Society as a director. He created and rehearsed plays such as "Zhongmu Ling", "He Jia Tomb", "Lu Xiang Dialing Kui", "Ziping Farewell", "Wenshan Martyrdom", "Double SpiritEd Daughter", "Ai Xiaozi" and so on. Because Liu Lijie has a certain cultural knowledge and has a deep study of opera, the artistic quality of rehearsal opera is quite high.
In the thirteenth year of the Republic of China (1924), Liu Lijie broke away from the Yi Folk Society and formed the "Qin Bell Society" in Sanyuan County, which was later renamed "Xinsheng Society". He has trained many drama talents, such as Liu Yiping, Cui Xiaozhong, Tang Chengzhong.
In 1934, Gansu Province, in the name of Mu Liu Lijie, took him to Lanzhou by plane for performance, which was very popular. In 1935, Liu Lijie died of illness in Xi'an at the age of 61. Liu Lijie had three sons, the eldest of whom was Liu Yuzhong.
Liu Yuzhong, zi Xiushan, born in 1896. Because of the influence of his father Liu Lijie, he loved to watch drama since he was a child and also wanted to act. However, in view of his own personal experience, Liu Lijie felt that the singers were not only inferior at that time, but also often bullied. Therefore, Liu Lijie is not willing to let his son be like himself, as a "drama doll". So I first let Liu Yuzhong go to the village to study private school for 5 years. When Liu Yuzhong was 13 years old, he was sent to Zhongshuncheng Vegetable Shop in Yujin Town as an apprentice for 3 years. In 1912, Liu Yuzhong was already 16 years old. At this time, his demand for learning drama was even stronger, and he repeatedly entrusted people to intercede with his father, and Liu Lijie reluctantly agreed. At this time, Liu Lijie was serving as a coach in the Hazel Society, considering that learning drama was a chore, and it was difficult for his son to learn to be famous around him, so he asked his brother Chen Yunong to introduce Liu Yunong to the Yi Folk Society to learn art.
Liu Yuzhong entered the Yi Folk Society in 1913 and was a student of the second term of the society. When he began to study drama, some coaches saw that he was old, thought that he had no future, and were unwilling to teach him drama. Once, the coach taught Liu's classmate Yan Zhenguo "Hero Tears", and he watched it from the side. As a result, Yan did not learn, he did, and the coach asked him to show Yan. But when it came time to perform, he let Yan perform instead of Liu. Liu Yuzhong thought: My father only started to learn drama at the age of 22, I am only 16 years old, why can't I? Since then, he has made up his mind and worked hard. In addition to the three exercises stipulated in the society, regardless of winter and summer, seize all the time to practice the basic skills, such as the posture, the horse style, and the horse style, and each action is practiced for one or two hours. Although his voice is not as good as his father's, he can be diligent and studious, and make up for his clumsiness. Therefore, shortly after graduating in 1916, he became a bearded man with both culture and martial arts, black and white, and became one of the main actors of the Yi Folk Society at that time.
Liu Yuzhong's performances are known for their handsomeness and robustness in the early days, and they are known for their vigor and fortitude and deep and realistic in the late period. In the long-term practice of stage art, he has continuously studied hard and learned from all the strengths. He combines the performing arts of the singers, the old workers and the old students, and strives to read clearly and pleasantly, sing vigorously and vigorously, suppress and clearly, and make the style real and meticulous. Thus forming a unique artistic style of his own fading old students, it was welcomed by the majority of the audience and highly praised by the art masters Mei Lanfang, Ouyang Yuqing, Gou Huisheng and others, and had the reputation of "Kansai Longdong, famous everywhere".
In his more than 70 years of stage career, Liu Yuzhong has performed more than 300 large and small plays, creating various types of character images. Such as Zong Ze in "Double Brocade", Shi Dakai in "Han Baoying", Wu Zixu in "Out of Tangyi", Liu Bei in "Ganlu Temple", "Yellow Crane Tower", "Hui Jingzhou", "Great Revenge", Wu Chengen in "Spring and Autumn Pen", Li Taibai in "Double Poetry", Xu Da in "Stringing Dragon Balls", Cao Fu in "Walking Snow", Hu Yan and Tian Yunshan in "You Guishan", Liu Ziming in "Bowl Counting", Bai Maolin in "Selling Painting Splitting Doors", Zhou Renrui in "Three Drops of Blood", etc., among them, there are old students, there are Zhengsheng, and there are also xiaosheng, He performed very well and enjoyed a high reputation among the audience. Especially when he played Xiang Yu in "Yin Tao Niang", he boldly absorbed the characteristics of flower face singing and work frames, and made greater innovations in makeup and costumes, vividly showing the rough and brave image of Chu Bawang's "strong uplifting mountain and qi over the world", and won the reputation of "living overlord". Zhou Ren, who plays in "Zhou Ren's Return to the House", not only has a dignified appearance and generous movements, but also can express passionate emotions and reveal sad and sad inner activities. As a result, it has won the reputation of "Living Zhou Ren". In July 1924, after Mr. Lu Xun watched Yi Folk Society's "Double Brocade", he praised Liu Yuzhong's performance.
Liu Yuzhong played Huang Zhang in the opera film "Flame Dog" and Zhou Renrui in "Three Drops of Blood". The color TV film "Liu Liuzhong, an old artist of qin cavity", recorded his performance art essence, and many singing segments were also recorded, and with the release and screening of these films, he was well known.
Liu Yuzhong has been elected as the people's deputy of Shaanxi Province and Xi'an City and the deputy of the Third National People's Congress on many occasions. In 1959, he was honored to be invited by the national leaders to attend the 10th National Day banquet and ceremony. He has also served as vice president of the Yi Folk Society, vice president of the Qinxiang Theater in Xi'an, member of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, member of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and adviser of the Shaanxi Branch of the Drama Association. In 1981, the 70th anniversary of Liu Yuzhong's stage life, the Xi'an Municipal Bureau of Culture, the Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature, the Shaanxi Branch of the Drama Association, and the Xi'an Yi Folk Society jointly held a grand celebration for him. At the age of 85, Liu Yuzhong took the stage to perform "Sacrifice of Spirits", "Road Encounter", "Han Baoying" and other plays.
On August 14, 1982, Liu Yuzhong died of illness at the age of 86. The great contributions made by Liu Lijie and Liu Yuzhong to the art of Qin Cavity are worth remembering forever.
(Author: Yan Chenggong Illustration: Qin Cavity Grand View Garden)