On the evening of September 23, the Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai" was successfully staged at the Kunshan Culture and Arts Center. The play is produced by Jiangsu Performing Arts Group and performed by Jiangsu Kun Theatre. It is not only the participating repertoire of the 2021 Zijin Culture and Art Festival, but also the opening ceremony performance of the 8th China Kunqu Opera Arts Festival.
The Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai" takes Qu Qiubai, one of the early major leaders of the Communist Party of China and one of the important founders of the Chinese revolutionary literary cause, as the protagonist, telling the story of how after his arrest, in the face of the Kuomintang or the courtesy or the soldiers, repeated persuasions, but always adhered to the original intention, did not move, until finally sacrificed his life for righteousness, martyrdom.
The play specially invited Luo Zhou, president of the Jiangsu Provincial Theater literature creation institute and famous screenwriter, to direct the plum blossom award winner and famous director Zhang Manjun, and the plum blossom award winner Shi Xiaomei and the Kunqu opera performance artist Zhao Jian as artistic directors. Shi Xiaming, winner of the Magnolia Main Role Award and a national first-class actor, plays Qu Qiubai, outstanding young actor Zhou Xin plays Song Xilian, Plum Blossom Award winner Kong Aiping plays Jin Xuan, Plum Blossom Award winner Ke Jun plays Lu Xun, Plum Blossom Award winner Shan Wen plays Yang Zhihua, and outstanding young actors Sun Jing, Zhao Yutao, and Qian Wei play Wang Jeff, Jiang Bing, and Chen Jianzhong.
Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai" is the third Kunqu modern opera created by Kunqu Opera in Jiangsu Province in recent years. From "Mei Lanfang Meilang", which traces the clear feelings of youth and carefully analyzes the growth process of the hearts of a generation of Peking Opera masters, to "Family River City", which focuses on the current epidemic examples and depicts the love and warmth of ordinary people, to "Qu Qiubai", which traces the wind and bones of the revolutionary ancestors and ignites the light of ideals and beliefs, the KunQu Opera of Jiangsu Province has proved to this era with works that have been highly praised by the industry and outside, that Kunqu opera can not only perform modern dramas and contemporary dramas, but also explore the unique values contained in works with different main themes, write real people with true feelings, and simplify and simplify. The extremely pure and beautiful Nankun style, like the spring wind and rain, is integrated into the links of text creation, stage scheduling, and performance art that are entangled, or resolute, or delicate, or magnificent.
Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai" is known as the "peak" of contemporary opera, and it is inseparable from the complementarity of the three main links mentioned above.
The script is the basis of a play. Throughout the play, the refreshing and ingenious highlight is the unique way the text is structured. The repertoire is composed of four folds of "Tracing the Origin", "Bingzhi", "Engraving the Heart" and "Taking The Righteousness". Among them, each fold is divided into two parts: "day" and "night". "Day" corresponds to the realistic space after Qu Qiubai's arrest, where his final journey to death is completed, which is composed of the Kuomintang's "three persuasions" and "Qiu Bai's death". "Night" corresponds to the psychological space after Qu Qiubai wanders in the real world, and it is the playwright who excavates and explores his heart after reading a large number of Qu Qiubai's deeds and in-depth understanding of the characters.
If we say that the reality of "day" is the tip of the iceberg. Then, the psychological space of the "night" hidden behind this is the broader, more boundless, and deeper emotion of the protagonist in the vast ocean. In the play, it is embodied in the mother-son love between Qu Qiubai and his mother Jin Xuan, who "misses and homesick", in the confidant love between Qu Qiubai and his friend Lu Xun, who "has enough to know oneself in life, and Si Shidang looks at it with the same heart", and in the marital love between Qu Qiubai and his lover Yang Zhihua.
In the creation of more than 100 plays, the playwright Luo Zhou has formed a distinct creative style, and through a large number of practical performances, it has been successfully verified and formed a theoretical system. When talking about the unique value of opera that distinguishes it from other art forms such as drama and television drama, Luo Zhou once expressed: "The greatest advantage of Chinese opera is to make the ultimate concentration and expression of the richness and layering of emotions, which solidifies and amplifies the emotions in an instant, thus completing the analysis of the human spirit, which is difficult to achieve by other art styles." Inheriting opera, when amplifying this unique emotional expressiveness. This creative idea is reflected in the play "Qu Qiubai". There is no deliberate carving in the whole drama, no place is mixed and complicated, such as still water, like a jade, with the most unique charm of Chinese opera itself, attracting contemporary audiences to enter the theater and linger.
It is precisely because of this that director Zhang Manjun defines the Kun opera "Qu Qiubai" with "heart drama". In her director's elaboration, she wrote: "This is a drama unfolding in the face of the proposition of life and death, and in an almost ultimate steep situation, the narration of the character's mental state of mind is vast and profound. Such 'heart drama' makes Kunqu opera enter modern life, and even acts as a carrier to express the pursuit of modernity, which can be said to be an attempt to write a high-level lyric of opera modernity. ”
As an outstanding contemporary director artist, director Zhang Manjun has created a number of landmark stage plays, giving the works a unique aesthetic pursuit in the process of one-time text to two stage presentations. In "Qu Qiubai", it is reflected in the concise and atmospheric stage design, embodied in the realistic lighting scene, and reflected in the director's scheduling that skillfully integrates classical and modern.
Above the stage, under the canopy, two huge scenes, one black and one white, stood quietly. "Day" and "night", "yin" and "yang", "life" and "death" are all contained in it. There are no complicated props, no trivial scheduling, an interrogation table and a prison bed in the whole play, which represents the environment in which Qu Qiubai is located. When not relying on the support of external forms, there is no doubt that there are considerable high requirements for the second degree of creation and the director's open spirit of digging deep into the hearts of the characters. And it is this challenge that makes the director have the motivation to constantly explore and move forward in his creation. Director Zhang Manjun once said: "Modern opera should 'retreat one into two', that is, return to the classical aesthetic spirit of China, enter the new cognition of modern concepts of people, establish new shape-giving coordinates, and win the contemporary era." Enter the main theme of modern opera on the soil of tradition, and reorganize the understanding of the ontology of art, that is, the understanding of people. ”
Sincerely, "Qu Qiubai" did it.
This is also inseparable from the actors' careful shaping of the role, from gestures, eyes, figures, steps, the shaping of each character is exquisite. Qu Qiubai, who is full of wind and bones, Song Xilian, who is entangled and intolerant, Jin Xuan, who is tenacious and resolute, Lu Xun, who is smart and wise, Yang Zhihua, who is gentle and confidant, Wang Jeff, who is old and fierce, Jiang Bing, who is foolish and brave, and Chen Jianzhong, who is flattering and cunning... The people in the play seem to be separated by a hundred years, coming from the corridors of history one after another.
When the performance came to an end, Qu Qiubai, played by Shi Xiaming, the director of the Kun Theater in Jiangsu Province, hummed the Russian version of the "International Song", and sat peacefully on the execution ground in a flower petal symbolizing blood, there was silence under the stage, so quiet that the low sobbing of the audience in the seat could be heard. At this moment, no one is passive, and no one is willing to destroy this nobility, tranquility and longevity.
"Life is like a summer flower, and death is like an autumn leaf." Mu Feng Frost, a hundred years, the newspaper and Mr. Gonggong. "A song of water mill, the afterglow is swirling, and if the People of Sri Lanka hear it, they should be pleased."
Correspondent Yu Sihan
Proofread sheng yuanyuan
Source: Purple Cow News