Infiltrate the hearts of the public with the beauty of Peking Opera
——The Beijing Peking Opera House commemorated the "Ma Pai" series of activities to talk about the aesthetic education mission of Peking Opera in the new era
Author: Liu Tong (Director of Beijing Opera House)
The wonderful and colorful performances aroused a wave of applause and applause, which resounded throughout the Chang'an Grand Theater. At the end of the song, bouquets of flowers are dedicated to the stage, and the beautiful sound of Peking Opera always lingers in the theater and surrounds the audience's heart. This is a series of live photos of the Beijing Opera House not long ago when it held a series of performances "Commemorating the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Peking Opera Master Mr. Ma Lianliang" and "Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Birth of Famous Peking Opera Artist Mr. Zhang Xuejin". Taking "Ji Ma" as an opportunity, the Beijing Opera House gathered the outstanding descendants of the third and fourth generations of the Ma Pai to stage the classic repertoire of the Ma Pai in turn, showing the beauty of Peking Opera, focusing on moving people with beauty, educating people with beauty, beautifying people, and cultivating yuan with beauty, and the effect was particularly good. Many young audiences who have just come into contact with Peking Opera can't help but get excited after watching the opera, and they have repeatedly shouted "Peking Opera is so beautiful."
Beijing Peking Opera House "Commemorating the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Peking Opera Master Mr. Ma Lianliang" series of performance photos. Courtesy of Beijing Peking Opera House
Carrying forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture and carrying forward the spirit of Chinese aesthetic education, the National Essence Peking Opera is one of the best carriers. Peking Opera condenses the historical context of Chinese civilization for 5,000 years on one stage and turns it into a story of song and dance, which is itself an immortal cultural innovation and a precious cultural essence; with distinct artistic characteristics and unique artistic creation, it interprets historical and cultural legends, interprets ideological and moral ethics, inherits the classical charm style, and becomes one of the most brilliant chapters of Chinese culture after the continuation of Chu Ci, Han Fu, Tang poetry, Song Ci, Yuan Qu, Ming and Qing novels. In the singing and playing of Peking Opera, between the hands, eyes and body steps, everywhere contains beauty, expresses beauty, portrays beauty, brings the audience the enjoyment of beauty in the senses, brings beautiful resonance emotionally, and brings beauty to the soul.
On October 23, 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed in an important reply letter to teachers and students of the China Academy of Performing Arts that he insisted on integrity and innovation. The five strokes of the word "zheng" can accurately summarize the five dimensions that we want to follow, inherit and carry forward peking opera today - "root, pulse, event, shape, and life".
"Root" refers to the expression of values in Peking Opera. The highest realm of values is the concept of the country, and the feeling of home and country is the eternal theme of Peking Opera. One of the reasons why the Beijing Opera House held a series of performances commemorating the "Ma Pai" this year was a great success was the inheritance of classics. And these classic repertoire and classic characters, such as Cheng Bao's worried country house in "The Orphan of Zhao", Kuang Han's tongue debate in "Ten Old An Liu", Zhang En's sacrifice to death in "Spring and Autumn Pen", Song Shijie's arrogance and greed in "Four Soldiers", Li Shimin's thirst for talents in "The Finishing Touch", and Ma Zhou's blunt irony, all have a deep sense of home and country, which deeply infects the audience.
"Pulse" refers to the concepts, characteristics and laws of the highest level of artistic aesthetics formed by Peking Opera in the process of development, which is the continuous continuation of Peking Opera's beauty, and the continuous pursuit, exploration and continuous creation of beauty. There are many schools of Peking Opera and very different styles, but all genres have the same commonality, that is, the correct understanding and accurate expression of beauty. The founders of all the Peking Opera genres have done this, so that they can open the sect.
The so-called correct understanding is the actor's correct analysis and understanding of the "thing", that is, the storyline and character of Peking Opera; the so-called accurate expression is that the actor follows and embodies the characteristics and laws of beauty of "shape", that is, the artistic beauty of Peking Opera, on the basis of correct understanding, and if it can continue to sublimate, create, and form new characteristics and styles, then it can be called a generation of grandmasters. The level of the actor's artistic attainment is based on the correct understanding of "things" and the accurate expression of "shape", the grasp of beauty and the horizontal ability to create beauty.
In layman's terms, the ultimate goal pursued by Peking Opera audiences to watch the opera is "addiction". The so-called "addiction" is essentially the audience's strong demand for the beauty and creativity embodied in the actor's performance (such as singing, reading, body, dance, martial arts, etc.). The audience's evaluation of the actor's performance is actually a judgment on the understanding of beauty and the expression of beauty. Among them, there are both factors of the actor's own performance level and the reason for the audience's own level of understanding. High-level actors can naturally guide the audience, and high-level audiences can even inspire actors. As a clever actor, he must take root in beauty and understand beauty in his heart in order to explain and express beauty on stage.
An important reason why Peking Opera is passed on from generation to generation and life is that the actors and audiences are always looking for beauty. Under the interactive relationship of seeking beauty between actors and audiences, a strong vitality of Peking Opera has been formed, and it has also caused Peking Opera to have the function of aesthetic education in addition to carrying the mission of "educating life".
During the May Fourth period, Mr. Cai Yuanpei, president of Peking University, put forward the famous idea of "replacing religion with aesthetic education". The symbol of Peking University's aesthetic education during Cai Yuanpei's period was to invite Mr. Wu Mei, an opera theorist and poetry writer, to Peking University to teach Kunqu opera.
In fact, not only in modern times, aesthetic education has always been an important part of China's excellent traditional culture. In ancient China, there was a saying of "six arts", one of which was "music". Confucius pointed out that "aspirations are in the Tao, according to virtue, according to benevolence, and in art", and proposed that "happiness in poetry, standing in etiquette, and success in music". "Music" and "art" are, in a sense, today's aesthetic education. As early as the Confucius period, "music" and "art" have been elevated to the same status as "morality" and "poetry", emphasizing the important role of aesthetic education in personality cultivation.
Peking Opera is good at using emotions to make people emotional and dramatize people. Its function of aesthetic education and indoctrination is contained in the height of the temple, lost in the distance of the rivers and lakes, and carries forward the profound connotation in the form of revitalization of the tradition, conserves the Chinese spirit, and nourishes modern life.
Peking Opera is the only art of beauty, this "only" is the only "only", and there is only the image expression of beauty on the stage of Peking Opera. This is the key to Peking Opera becoming the "national essence" and passing it on to this day, if Peking Opera loses its beauty, it has no meaning of existence.
At the heart of beauty is the dissemination of and guiding the right values. Peking opera is a song and dance story, and every story told is to illustrate a problem, that is, to explain how to behave and how to do things. The reason is very simple, everyone has a heart for beauty, as long as you give beauty to others, others will be happy to accept. The cleverness of Peking Opera lies in the deciphering of the highest state of communication: the audience has clearly identified with the actor's emotions and has followed the development of the plot, but still thinks that they are choosing the direction. Peking Opera has such a charming charm. Because Peking Opera uses artistic expression and beauty to convey the form to impress people's hearts and infiltrate the heart. With beauty, who is not happy to accept? Peking opera actors are as missionary as teachers, engineers of the human soul. The peking opera actors are using art forms and conveying beauty to the audience to express political will, ideological and moral concepts, and in the silent silence of the moisturizing things, let the audience consciously identify with the truth, goodness and beauty, and lash out at the false evil and ugly. The long-term experience of "gaotai indoctrination" accumulated by Peking Opera has also provided us with valuable wealth for telling Chinese stories and spreading Chinese voices in the new era.
To carry forward Peking Opera is not only to let "Peking Opera surname Beijing" and protect the cultural treasure of Peking Opera, but also to protect and give full play to the positive role of Peking Opera in carrying forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture, carrying forward the spirit of Chinese aesthetic education, and cultivating and practicing the core values of socialism. Infiltrating the hearts of the public with the beauty of Peking Opera, so that more and more souls dance with beauty, in the beautiful interpretation of Peking Opera's song and dance story, the cultural self-confidence of building a cultural power is born spontaneously.
Guangming Daily ( 2021.11.07 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily