Author: Han Shangyi
For more than a year, I was able to work with Mr. Mei Lanfang, an outstanding performing artist, with selfless Soviet experts, and many comrades with profound cultivation in opera and fine arts, to do the art design work of shooting Mr. Mei's stage art documentary, which was a fortunate and pleasant and rare study. As far as a layman of opera is concerned, he would like to focus on the issue of the set of the opera through this work.
Under the guidance of experts and directors, You Gong was cared for by Mr. Mei Lanfang himself, and often provided many specific and valuable opinions, which enabled me to gain some experience in the issue of opera set, write it out and study it with comrades who are concerned about the opera stage art.
Mei Lanfang", "Overlord Farewell"
In recent years, the set design of some plays in many opera troupes has begun to improve and there have been good results, but difficulties and problems are not without, especially for the design of those ancient traditional plays.
Classical opera often uses the stage as an infinite space, it has no time and place restrictions on the sea and the sky, such as opening and closing the door, going upstairs and downstairs, riding a horse, rowing a boat, until the use of each prop, mostly relying on movements to convey, and develop into a beautiful dance body. The actor sings a sentence and runs a round field to represent the transition from A to B, and the actor covers it with his hand and gestures indoors or outdoors. These many virtual and actually beautiful dance movements have been loved by the audience for many years, and some foreign friends have said: "This is a complete art that anyone can understand." ”
When I first designed it, I was very afraid of using scenery, and even thought that using a velvet curtain to cope with changes would best solve everything. However, after watching some of the previous opera films, I was deeply deficient in a piece of light and light, or some patterns that were purely decorative and had nothing to do with the plot, because it could not play an auxiliary role in the drama of fine arts, could not increase the picture modeling power of the film or stage, and could not set off the theme and create an atmosphere, so I decided to a principle: as far as possible to pay attention to the coordination with the performance and use the set, according to different repertoire content, different performances to make different designs. So we study its performance characteristics from the content of the script, and under the requirements of maintaining the traditional performance style of Peking Opera, we study what scene actors' beautiful virtual actions are contradictory to the realistic set; what scenes do not have this contradiction at all, or some places can boldly use three-dimensional scenes after the actor's performance is appropriately modified, and its basic style can be coordinated with the freehand, exaggerated, song and dance body, decorative costumes, and makeup of the opera itself, without harming the actor's performance.
Mei Lanfang's "Anti-Gold Soldier"
As a result of the design, we can cite the following examples: in the play "Anti-Gold Soldier", Mr. Mei Lanfang used a large flag embroidered with the word "Liang" as the background when performing. I think this design is very clever, because whether Liang Hongyu is on the boat, on the mountain, or on the plain, her big flag is always behind, using this exaggerated prop as the background, setting off the style of a heroine, which not only highlights the content but also enriches the stage image, but also solves the limitations of the environment and retains the traditional style of Peking Opera performance. So the film also retains its original appearance.
In "Farewell to the Overlord", it is to express the tragic feelings of a self-absorbed overlord who is overwhelmed by victory and a woman who is loyal to love- Yu Ji, and the location of the character's activities changes a lot in the performance, so it is not possible to set up a three-dimensional tent. Inspired by the shadow puppetry of folk art, we designed a colorful flat tent in a decorative and freehand way, standing alone on the green grass, with the background being the exterior of the blue sky, and the knife and spear exposed behind the tent, which means the majesty of the former overlord, and now the lone lamp is embattled. As for the mountain pieces on the left and right sides, on the one hand, they want to create the environmental feeling that the overlord is in the mountains of "the land under the mountain, Takaoka Rock", on the other hand, it also makes the scenery on the stage more complete and improves the contentless wing.
The design of "Broken Bridge" and "Noble Concubine Drunk", a traditional repertoire that is performed continuously regardless of the number and place, is based on the pure decorative "old-fashioned" (tent) in the past, combined with the content of the play, using the style of Chinese painting, designing the hand-rolled background of classical Chinese painting, and feeling that it is very unified and coordinated with the costumes and costumes of classical opera. Like the background of the West Lake in "Broken Bridge", it is used to set off the scorching mood of the White Lady who fights all the way and wanders into Lin'an. The background of the drunken Royal Garden, with a hundred flowers blooming and intoxicating the Royal Garden to set off The Yang Yuhuan of "Inheriting the Joy and Serving Wine for the Year", this design increases the inner role of the characters in the play to a certain extent, and is more valuable than a curtain of light and light.
Mei Lanfang's "Cosmic Front" filming scene
There are also some scenes and scenes in the film that are relatively clear, like the scene of "Cosmic Front", which is divided into two scenes, one is "repairing the book" at home, and the other is "pretending to be crazy" in the Golden Temple. There is no change in space, and there is no contradiction between performance and set, so we use a more three-dimensional scene. In the "Golden Palace" scene, tall pillars and carved dragon screens were used to concisely illustrate a majestic palace, and in contrast, the mighty and indomitable spirit of Zhao Nu was more intense.
I think the stage artist first wants to understand the content of the program, the theme idea and the characteristics of its performance, from the actor's singing voice, movements to the rhythm of the music, which are related to the set design. Using scenery or not, and what kind of scenery to use, need to be carefully and carefully studied.
Through the art design work of "Mei Lanfang's Stage Art", I have realized even more that stage art workers should be both cautious and imaginative, cooperate more with performing artists, listen to their opinions, and continuously improve the work of this department, and contribute to making China's excellent opera art more colorful.
(Guangming Daily, March 16, 1956)