Invited by the 20th "Meet in Beijing" International Arts Festival, the Evergreen Theater Company in the field of Japanese song and dance drama, the Takarazuka Opera Troupe, which has trained outstanding actresses such as Yuki Tenkai, Hitomi Kuroki, and Masayoshi Daichi, performed "Sword and the Light of Love - Women Who Love Napoleon" at the Beijing Tianqiao Art Center from January 10 to 12.
Courtesy of the organizer
As a century-old theater company, Takarazuka Opera Company has not only profoundly influenced the form of musical theater in Japan, but also influenced artists and works in different artistic disciplines, such as influencing the Japanese animation and manga industries. The biggest feature of the troupe is that its members are all unmarried women, and the male characters are performed by women" in the "reverse string", so a considerable number of members will leave the troupe because they are married or ready to get married, and these members of the troupe are generally called graduates or Takarazuka og (old generation), and the withdrawal from the group is called "graduation". Today, Takarazuka Opera Company has more than 400 members and more than 4,000 graduates, making it a large-scale stage performance group that is well-known throughout Japan and the world, and one of the most performed song and dance troupes in the world.
Takarazuka adopts the top star system, with five groups of "flower, moon, snow, star, and zeus", and each group will have two master artists, "male servant" and "female servant". This time, the "Meet in Beijing" International Arts Festival invited the former snow group male servant top Gaoling Blowing Snow, the former month group female servant top Ma Nai Jiashi, the former snow group female servant top dance style Liluo and another 19 selected Takarazuka opera troupe og actors to perform in Beijing, in order to let everyone better watch the performance, the Beijing News takes you to understand this troupe with a century-old history.
1. Three exclusive theaters
The predecessor of the Takarazuka Opera Company was the Takarazuka Singing Team founded in 1913 by Kazuzo Kobayashi, former president of Hankyu Electric Railway, and trained and performed. In 1914, it was reorganized into the Maiden Opera Troupe, and completed the first performance of the Takarazuka Girls' Song and Dance Drama at the Playground Theater, which was converted from a swimming pool to 17 girls aged 12 to 17. In 1939, the troupe separated training from performance and established the Takarazuka Music School, which was officially renamed the Takarazuka Opera Company in 1940. Today, Takarazuka Opera Company has three exclusive theaters, namely the Takarazuka Grand Theater in Hyogo Prefecture, the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater in Tokyo, and the small-scale sub-theater "Takarazuka Bow Hall" adjacent to the Takarazuka Grand Theater.
2. The Rose of Versailles
The performance forms of the Takarazuka Opera Company's Grand Theater are mainly drama and song and dance shows. Most of the plays are written by the troupe's exclusive performers, or adapted from well-known films or literary works, as well as Western musical adaptations, and the performance content of the song and dance show is almost original by the troupe's exclusive writers. In 1974, Takarazuka caused a huge sensation in Japan with the play "Rose of Versailles", and in the following decades Takarazuka re-adapted the play to the stage three times, becoming the most popular opera masterpiece of the Takarazuka Opera Company, so a statue of the play was erected in front of the Hyogo Prefectural Takarazuka Grand Theater.
In addition to original works, takarazuka Opera Company's repertoire includes musicals from Europe and the United States such as "me and my girl", "guys & dolls", and "elisabeth", as well as classic novels such as "Gone with the Wind" and manga adaptations such as "Lupin III", and even "The Story of Niigenji", which adapts Japanese classical literature into musicals.
3. Troupe grouping
Audiences familiar with Takarazuka know that the opera troupe has five groups of "Flowers, Moons, Snows, Stars, and Zeus". In addition, there is a "specialty" composed of highly skilled senior team members, and the specialist actors do not belong to any group, but support the performances of each group in the form of "special performances". Each group has a pair of starring groups, one is a male servant called the chief star, and the other is a chief bridesmaid with the chief star. Most of the performances are centered on the principal duo, incorporating the characteristics of each group member. Among them, the Flower Group and the Moon Group are the elders who have existed since 1921, the Snow Group and the Star Group were founded in 1924 and 1933 respectively, and the Zeus Group was the New Ding, which was born in 1998. The representative colors of each group are: flower group - pink, moon group - yellow, snow group - green, star group - blue, zeus group - purple.
4. Lineup of coming to Beijing
Still. Courtesy of the organizer
The Takarazuka Opera Troupe og who came to Beijing to perform this time has the former snow group male service star actor Gao Ling Chuixue, who was the partner of the first "Princess Xixi" in Asia; the former moon group female service star actor Ma Nai Jiashi, she was also the partner of the well-known actor Tenkai Yuki, the two graduated from Takarazuka on the same day, the "Tenma" partner is still a must for many Takarazuka fans to initially chase the drama; the former snow group female service star actor Dance Feng Liluo, she was once the partner of the powerful male star actor Chao Haiguang, who sang and danced well, and both were dancers of high level. It is a famous partner combination with a high degree of cooperation. In addition to the three star actors, the tour features another 19 selected Takarazuka Opera Company og actors, spanning from the post-60s to the post-90s.
5. The selection system is strict
For girls with "Takarazuka Dream", if they want to join the group and take the stage, they first need to be admitted to the Takarazuka Music School (only 40 students are enrolled every year), the girls apply from the society, and after the investigation of song and dance performances, the music school selects a new batch of music school students with a very low admission rate. After two years of rigorous training in school, you can enter the troupe after graduation. After joining the group, the members of the group are called "graduate students", and they are ranked as seven students in the graduate school according to the year, and they are converted from the eighth student to the superior student. The members of the troupe are all from the Takarazuka Music School.
In addition, all actors who have been in the troupe for less than seven years must participate in the newcomer performance (referring to the performance of young actors under seven years old to perform the grand theater performance repertoire). The troupe will select actors to play the main roles among the actors participating in the newcomer performance, and the young actors who play the starring star role are called the main actors of the newcomer performance. An actor with experience in the main role of a newcomer, the troupe will let her star in a small theater performance according to the conditions of seniority, popularity and other conditions, so as to accumulate experience in the theater starring, and then it is possible to be promoted to a third hand, a second hand, or even a chief star.
6. Male service training for more than 10 years
Takarazuka Opera Troupe has a strict training system for "male service" and "female service", and the "male service" training is even more arduous, and the troupe must train girls to walk, eat, sleep, etc. to be like men, and only after leaving the group can they return to the image of women. Usually, it takes more than ten years for a newcomer actor to enter the troupe and be promoted to a starring male service, while the starring female service is about four to eight years, mainly depending on the personnel turnover situation at that time. However, there are still actors who will soon be hired - the fastest leading male servant is Tenkai Yuki (who joined the group in 1987 and took office in the month group in 1993); the main actor is Hitomi Kuroki (who joined the group in 1981 and took office in the month group in 1982). The length of tenure of the starring stars is also different, and in recent years, the term of office has been mostly two to four years (about four to six sets of coliseum works), but it will also increase or decrease due to the wishes of the actors and the adjustment of the personnel arrangement of the troupe.
7. Fans are also like "agents"
"Fans" are a valuable resource for the Takarazuka Opera Company to survive. Fan teams are groups that apply for establishment in the name of individuals, often contracting a large number of box office benefits of Takarazuka, interestingly, these fan teams also spontaneously assumed the functions of some actor assistants and agents, so in the process of the actor's promotion to The Chief of Takarazuka, whether the male servant can well drive fans is also one of the assessment criteria for whether she can become the chief actor.
8. Pay attention to etiquette and character
Initially, Kobayashi Ichizo set the goal of creating a "national drama suitable for family viewing", leaving a six-character troupe motto of "purity, integrity and beauty", expecting young girls not only to study basic acting skills, but also to pay attention to etiquette and norms, and not forget the character that a woman and a social person should have. The hard and stable personality of the male played by women in the troupe has been dissolved, and there is a lot of tenderness in addition to the coldness, which is the main reason why many Japanese female audiences love Takarazuka.
Beijing News reporter Liu Zhen
Edited by Tian Kaini Proofread by Xue Jingning