Xie Tao's road to innovation: to make Jin opera more modern

introduction

Many people who have heard Xie Tao sing have become "fans" of Jin Opera, and they spontaneously formed the "Tao Fan Home", no matter which city Xie Tao performs in, the "Tao fans" will follow the past. Let the Jin opera performance have the feeling of a star concert, Xie Tao did it. Today, we want to talk about such an extraordinary Xie Tao, a Xie Tao who dares to innovate and is good at innovation in the development process of Jinju Opera. It is precisely because she has always been determined to boldly innovate in the singing and performance of Jin opera, so that she can stand higher on the stage, sing louder in the audience, and go further in the market.

The repertoire is innovative, so that Jin opera can gain a foothold in this era

Xie Tao once said that her 40-year career in the arts is mainly divided into several stages, the first stage of 15 years, she seriously learned the art, learned the older generation of Jin opera people left behind the traditional repertoire; the second stage of 15 years, began to ponder innovation, and strive to produce new plays, high-quality plays, out of the times in line with the times; the third stage is to pass on the Jin opera. Only in this way can Jin opera gain a foothold in today's era of fast food culture.

"As we all know, it is not easy to be an opera actor, you must understand the white snow of Yangchun, but also you have to lean down and be a riba person. In other words, at a time when fast food culture was prevalent, most of the market for opera was distributed in the countryside, and actors, although in the bustling city, often had to go to the countryside to perform. For Xie Tao, no matter before or after becoming famous, going to the countryside to perform is a work task that must be completed every year, sleeping on the floor with colleagues in the troupe and eating a large pot of rice, not only for the cause of Jin opera, but also for the most basic life. This "bitterness" made Xie Tao understand the importance of change and innovation.

Why innovate? Since Xie Tao started from the arts, she has been striving to surpass herself, from a young danjiao to a bearded student, and through the "Horse School" inheritor Li Yuexian teacher, her high-pitched and exciting singing voice and passionate performance have become famous in the pear garden line, becoming the industry benchmark in the eyes of many young actors, but she is not satisfied with herself. "To be honest, from the moment I took the stage, I was imitating and repeating the teachers' plays, which was a valuable asset, but unfortunately none of the characters were created by myself. Although Jin opera is a traditional art, it should also keep pace with the times. At that time, Xie Tao thought of the Jin opera master Ding Guoxian, "Before there was no precedent for women dressed as men on the Jin opera stage, Mr. Ding Guoxian broke the convention and used 50 years to push the performing arts of Jin opera Xusheng to a new realm, and created a 'Ding Pai' singing voice, which is also an innovation in itself." ”

In the 1990s, someone wrote the modern Jin opera "Ding Guoxian" and found Xie Tao. Compared with the traditional drama one move and one style, one singing and one white face to teach the heart, modern drama is the most difficult to perform, Xie Tao not only portrays the masculine and handsome Xusheng "Ding Guoxian" on the stage, but also shows the gentle and affectionate "Ding Guoxian" in life, rigid and soft, yin and yang, which is a theatrical role that has never existed in the art of Jin opera, but Xie Tao runs the word innovation, bravely picks the beam, and finally becomes a hit. Subsequently, the newly created plays emerged one by one, such as "Fan Jinzhongju", "Fu Shan Jinjing", "Yu Chenlong", "Rotten Ke Mountain" and other plays, Xie Tao turned the impossible into a possibility, a well-received play, so that her name resounded throughout the north and south of the river; and in "Shangma Street" and "Qifeng Street", Xie Tao, who returned to modern drama, appeared on the stage with the industry of "Lao Dan and Qingyi", Xie Tao is such a Jin opera "cow" person who can easily transform into various roles!

What you see may only be Xie Tao, who is bright and beautiful in front of the magnesium lamp, but behind the fame of the horn, what supports her is the persistence and innovation of the art of Jin opera. Xie Tao often said, "The road to art is to innovate." As some experts and scholars summed up, "Jin opera under the Xie Tao era has broken through the traditional themes, not only has a new idea, but also a new story, bringing a fresh air to Jin opera, integrating the characteristics of the times, and enriching artistic expression!" ”

"Script innovation is the foundation of Jin opera innovation, and on this road, I have met many noble people. Director Lei Shouzheng, screenwriters Zheng Huaixing, Zhao Aibin, composer Liu Heren, etc., it is precisely under their encouragement, encouragement and promotion that I can meet good scripts, good characters, and innovative Jin operas. "Xie Tao is a person who knows how to be grateful, a mentor on the road of opera, she will always remember it, and it is precisely because of such a group of behind-the-scenes heroes who silently dedicate themselves to the art of Jin opera that there is a new Jin opera today."

The singing voice is innovative, which makes Jin opera have the taste of opera

"Before I met Teacher Xie Tao, I didn't know what Jinju was. After watching her "Fu Shan Into Beijing", I knew that Jin opera can be so beautiful, it can be high-pitched and exciting, and it can also be gentle and melodious. Shandong girl Xu Lin is a veritable "Tao fan", in order to chase the stars, she even left her hometown to come to Shanxi and came to Work with Xie Tao. On the road of promoting Jin opera, Xie Tao has let more people, especially young audiences, know the new Jin opera, a more tense and empathetic Jin opera. This has to start from Xie Tao's inheritance and innovation in the singing voice of Jin opera.

Jin opera singing voice, the use of high-key doors, male and female actors are mostly the same tone, high-pitched, majestic, and Xie Tao's singing voice, inclusive, self-contained style, she uses scientific vocal methods, the cavity not only has its own master, that is, Li Yuexian's fierce unrestrained, but also on the basis of continuous learning of other teachers' style, absorbed the characteristics of other kinds of drama singing voice, and with the mood of the characters in the play, Zhang Relaxed presented the vocal cavity performance in a degree, which is why Xie Tao opened his voice, One of the reasons she can take the viewer into a particular environment is that her voice merges with the character's heart. "In the traditional Jin opera, they all pay attention to plucking (note: plucking the high note), generally will be a few degrees higher than the scale, the audience will think that you sing well, this is because the performance conditions were poor that year, the audience was far from the stage, there was no sound equipment, afraid that everyone could not hear, the actors had to sing with their voices. Now our stage conditions are good, if you always pull out the high pitch in a play, the audience will not feel beautiful, and the actor's voice will be damaged prematurely! On the road of Jin opera innovation, Xie Tao thinks very carefully, whether it is singing and playing or Shen Yun shape table, she focuses on the most basic links, from the audience's appreciation and interest considerations, and polishes the details a little bit.

The innovation of singing is definitely not achieved overnight, and the Jin opera "Luhua" is the starting point of Xie Tao's innovation. Xie Tao said: "'Lu Hua' is a new performance of the old drama, the protagonist of the play Min Deren has a core singing section 'Er Kneeling', my teachers and other dramas are singing in a high tone when performing, and then there will be a cheer from the stage. In my opinion, Min Deren is a cultured person, and his expression should be more subtle, and he should adopt the technique of first weakening and gradually strengthening and then weakly harvesting in the singing cavity processing. As soon as Xie Tao's idea was said, Liu Heren, who designed the singing voice at that time, said that the change was good, very bold, which was very in line with the mood of the characters, but the audience would not necessarily applaud, because everyone had become accustomed to the traditional way of performance, which was suddenly reformed, afraid that the audience could not accept it.

Sure enough, as soon as Xie Tao's version of "Lu Hua" appeared, there was an uproar, and even her teacher said, "Xie Tao, I don't think it is appropriate for you to change it like this." "However, Xie Tao did not stop innovating, but listened carefully to the opinions of the audience and experts, further polished the script and singing, and finally made "Luhua" bloom with new vitality." No matter how you sing, your ultimate goal is to deeply shape the characters and advance the plot. In terms of Jin opera confessions and lyrics, Xie Tao has also popularized some of the so-called "slang" in Jin operas, so that the audience can better understand and understand. Many "Tao fans" say that watching Xie Tao's performance is like watching an opera, singing into the ears, the plot is interlocked, and between the ups and downs, singing all kinds of things in the world.

In fact, from the time of learning art to becoming famous, as long as Xie Tao's life is related to Jin opera, she will professionally and persistently ponder and study, even to the point of obsession. So there is a later "Fan Jin Zhongju", a portrayal of "becoming crazy and becoming a demon".

Performance innovation, first "do" people and then sing

Opera performances are usually stylized, and an actor on the stage can represent a thousand miles a day; three or five dragon sets, soldiers will stand on the stage, that is, thousands of troops and horses. How to meet the audience's aesthetics under the influence of the artistic model of various carriers, especially how to attract more young audiences, has become a major issue in the inheritance and development of Jin opera? Following the Jin opera "Ding Guoxian", Xie Tao, Lei Shouzheng, Zhao Aibin, Liu Heren became the "iron partner" of the innovation road of Jin opera. Lei Shouzheng and Xie Tao, who are born as drama directors, coincide, and they must first "do" people and then sing, that is, show the inner character of the characters with the externalization of singing, directly hitting the audience's heart.

Recalling the scene when filming "Fan Jin Zhongju", Xie Tao bluntly said that it was "too difficult", because of the problem of funds, the crew was stretched, from the stage to the costume, they were tightening the belt to live a life, but from singing to acting, the requirements of several teachers have never been lowered. "Fan Jin Zhongju" is a classic play by Peking Opera master Xi Xiaobo, who once said that the most difficult thing to perform is the scene where Fan Jin goes crazy. In this regard, Xie Tao is also very difficult, how can he have personal characteristics? Xie Tao recalled: "Director Lei is a drama director, he usually gives me a play first, let me understand the heart of the character, and then I use the body of Jin Opera to express it. I had the impression of playing a scene where Fan Jin was crazy and writing on the ground with a broom, how to design it could not meet the standards required by the director, and then I racked my brains and thought of the bridge section in the Jin opera Wusheng who played with flower guns, so I found The teacher Wusheng Lü Tiecheng, asked him to string together the moves of the gun flower and the stick flower, I went home and integrated, designed five or six sets of plans, and after continuous correction, chose a set of the most appropriate. On the stage, Xie Tao used a broom as a flower gun, dancing not only the freedom and heroism of Wusheng, but also the strange and complicated mentality of a reader after his insanity.

"Today's audiences, especially young audiences, have a high ability to appreciate art, and if you want to resonate with them, you must rely on real interpretation and shaping, so as to narrow the distance between the opera itself and the audience." Over the years, Xie Tao has always adhered to the principle of audience first to innovate Jin opera, some people say that she is "subversive" rather than inherited, but if you look back at her newly created repertoire, it is full of the profound skills and skills of traditional Jin opera art. For example, the most crazy clip in "Fan Jin Zhongju" uses DanJiao's chair skill, and the moment he falls off the chair, Xie Tao interprets the crazy Fan Jin to the fullest, and also makes the audience directly addicted.

"Innovation is not about throwing away tradition, but about constantly exploring and exploring how to present Jin opera in a performance way that is more adaptable to the audience." In the face of challenges, Xie Tao's innovative "routine" is a feature, that is, to walk the heart! "Rotten Ke Shan Xia", the sorrow and joy behind the realization of the ambition of "Xiu Qi Zhi Ping"; "Yu Chenlong", showing the spirit of a generation of honest officials who are not officials but still sincerely serve the people; "Fu Shan Into Beijing", through the frequent wars between imperial culture and the culture of scholars, interprets the integrity of a generation of literati who are not afraid of power to the fullest... In order to successfully shape these literati, Xie Tao read poetry, studied history deeply, and put herself into the situation to understand the characters, so in each character shaping, she first went to be that person, and then she went to perform that person. For example, in order to create the role of "Yu Jackie Chan", she shaved her hair three times, only to make the performance on the opera stage more realistic.

Some people say that this is the "drama" presentation in the stage of Xie's Jin opera, but in any case, Xie Tao applies the skills of Jin opera performance to the expression of characters' hearts and behaviors, which also infects the audience and triggers thinking about the value of history and life, which is also an important reason why the new Jin opera attracts young audiences and even national audiences.

During the interview, Xie Tao never said that she was the one who reformed Jin opera, she has always been humble and low-key, and she will not flaunt what efforts she has made, she just says innovation, or the sentence she often chants, "If the road of art is evergreen, innovation is the key!" ”

Shanxi Evening News reporter Sun Yiqiong

(Editor-in-charge: Candy)