In front of the stage, peking opera collided with symphonies, and six plum blossom award winners took the stage one by one, which made people look like crazy and listen to them; behind the scenes, an exchange about the canal continued, the fusion of history and modernity, and the cultural link between the beginning and end of the Grand Canal was completed.
During the 2021 China Grand Canal Cultural Belt Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue, the large-scale Peking Opera Symphony Suite "Beijing Grand Canal" was staged in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. In the interweaving of Peking Opera and symphony, several major movements unfold one by one, showing the past and present lives of the Millennium Canal.
"The spread of canal culture requires such works." Li Hongtu, a famous young student of the Ye Pai of the Beijing Peking Opera House who won the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award and participated in the performance, said that literary and art workers should not only use their works to praise the era, but also do a good job in the international expression of Chinese culture.
Peking Opera meets symphony
A river connects Beijing and Hangzhou, and a vein runs through ancient and modern times. How should the thousand-year-old Grand Canal culture be based on the new era? On October 22, the large-scale Peking Opera symphonic suite "Beijing Grand Canal" staged at the Hangzhou Grand Theatre in Zhejiang May provide an answer.
"Beijing Grand Canal" is the first stage art work in China that reflects the Beijing section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Through the fusion of traditional Peking Opera and Western symphony, it depicts the development of the Beijing section of the Grand Canal, historical changes and humanistic allusions.
On the same day, on the banks of the Hangzhou Canal, six "plum blossoms" from Beijing took turns to fight for beauty.
From Cao Xueqin's creation of "Dream of the Red Chamber" to Huiban's entry into Beijing, to the Eight Mile Bridge to fight against the invaders, to the rise of the Chinese dream and the renewal of the times, the performance team of about 200 people told the long years of the Beijing section of the Grand Canal and the unique history and culture of Beijing City.
"'Beijing Grand Canal' is an innovation in the cooperation between symphony and Peking Opera." Li Hongtu said that the orchestra of traditional Peking Opera performances is traditional instruments such as Jinghu, Erhu and Yueqin, but this time it is to integrate the symphony orchestra into Peking Opera, and a choir has also been added.
In fact, in the world of opera, the combination of Peking Opera and symphony is not the first time.
"But 'The Grand Canal of Beijing' is an original piece of music and a new orchestration." As one of the participants, Du Zhenjie, winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award and a famous veteran actor, said that the performance combined the vocal cavities of different genres of Peking Opera with symphony.
As can be seen on the program list, "Beijing Grand Canal" is jointly performed by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, the Beijing Opera House and the Beijing Music Association Choir. In the "Six Plums", Li Hongtu is Ye Pai Xiaosheng, Chi Xiaoqiu is Cheng Pai Qingyi, and Zhang Xinyue is Mei Pai Qingyi.
In terms of form, each piece of "Beijing Grand Canal" has an independent theme. For example, Li Hongtu sang the paragraph "Stars in the Sky Guo Shoujing", Chi Xiaoqiu sang "A Hundred Years of Tonghui Words and Vicissitudes", and Du Zhenjie sang "Smoke Willows Faintly Zhangjiawan".
As a participant, Zhang Huifang, winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award and a famous Tsing Yi actress, believes that this work is a satisfactory answer sheet of "East and West". She hopes that through continuous polishing and modification, "Beijing Grand Canal" will become a carrier for spreading canal culture.
Look back at the canal from modern times
In fact, the performance of "Beijing Grand Canal" in Hangzhou is the cultural link between the beginning and end of the Grand Canal, and it is the current people's look back at history.
It is reported that the whole song of "Beijing Grand Canal" is divided into four movements: prelude and "A Tower Shadow Sees Tongzhou", "Stars in the Sky Guo Shoujing", "Drifting Beijing City", and "Tribute to the Grand Canal", which exist to connect ancient and modern and communicate the relationship between tradition and modernity.
"Before I did, I didn't know much about the Grand Canal." Li Hongtu frankly said that in order to sing the paragraph of "Guo Shoujing, The Stars in the Sky", he worked hard and specially consulted the materials.
Guo Shoujing was a famous scientist of the Yuan Dynasty of China, and through the planning and design of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal to cut corners and straighten out, he initially laid the direction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal from the Yuan Dynasty to the present. In a series of data searches and rehearsals, Li Hongtu said that he knew Guo Shoujing and approached the Grand Canal.
In Li Hongtu's view, the significance of the creation of "Beijing Grand Canal" is not only to innovate the form of performance, but more importantly, to let more people start and be willing to understand the Grand Canal and spread canal culture.
Xinyue, a national first-class actor and winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, deeply feels the same way about this. She mentioned that the performance is also a kind of learning, which can give her an in-depth understanding of the history and culture of the canal. "The role of the performance is to promote."
It is reported that "Beijing Grand Canal" has been performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts three times. In each round of performances, the creators will revise and improve the works to make the work more and more perfect. Zhang Xinyue said that continuous polishing is to accurately show the canal culture to the audience, so that the audience can understand and like the Grand Canal.
"We have the responsibility and obligation to spread the culture of the canal." Zhang Xinyue said that she had participated in the 2020 Beijing-Hangzhou dialogue activities. This time, "Beijing Grand Canal" was staged in Hangzhou as one of the 2021 Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue series of activities, which can also be regarded as a "consummation".
A few days ago, "Beijing Grand Canal" opened the tour of China's seven cities. After Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, we will go to Nanjing, Yangzhou, Nantong, Ningbo, Suzhou and other cities along the canal to carry out a retrospective and dialogue across time and space.
From domestic to international
Whether it is the combination of Peking Opera and symphony, or the linkage between Beijing and Hangzhou, yang Shaopeng, a national actor and winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, has only one goal: to promote the international spread of canal culture.
He said that the combination of Peking Opera and symphony is also a microcosm of the Chinese nation's continuous absorption of the excellent cultural nutrition of other nationalities and the exchange of world culture. With the deepening of contact with foreign things and foreign art, "we also hope that traditional art can be combined with the excellent culture of the contemporary era, so as to better promote our traditional art." ”
The ancient is used for the present, the foreign is used in china, and the east and the west are combined. This is Du Zhenjie's summary of the "Grand Canal of Beijing".
For how to do a good job in the international dissemination of the Grand Canal culture, he believes that it is still correct and innovative. "If there is no innovation, then thousands of years later, Peking Opera will still be Peking Opera, symphony or symphony, but the combination of the two, it is a new form."
The same is true of the inheritance of canal culture, he said. As a descendant, we must pay attention to excavation and artistic processing. Literary and artistic works can most touch people's hearts. During the performance, he was also pleased to see that through this novel form of expression, he not only attracted the old audience, but also attracted more audiences other than Peking Opera.
Zhang Huifang believes that the international spread of canal culture must not only have Western elements, but also drive the entire canal basin and let it penetrate into people's lives.
"'Beijing Grand Canal' condenses the history and culture of the Beijing section of the Grand Canal, and the description of the entire section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is still less." She hopes that she can take this tour of seven cities as an opportunity to lead artists from node cities along the canal to create literary and artistic works related to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and connect history with modern stories.
Text/China News Network reporter Xie Panpan Tong Xiaoyu Wang inscription
Photography / Wang Gang
Editor/Cui Wei