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"Drama, it's a huge and huge thing, it's the people. This is humanity, this is life. A play, is a person. Under the bronze mask, there are flesh and blood faces. There is also a deep infinity. Through the small hole in the mask, I saw not only the eyes, I saw the stars. ”
In the days of Writing Shakespeare, Victor Hugo wrote about his reflections on drama.
Chinese readers often know Hugo from his novels, and the long novels "Notre Dame de Paris", "Les Misérables", "The Smiley Man", and "1993" are almost the impressions of most Chinese readers on Hugo. However, as the leader of the French Romantic movement, drama was an important way for Hugo to be known to the people in his time, and it was also the place where he first devoted himself to the literary world and made a great use of his skills.
Oil on canvas "Hernani Premiere: On the Eve of the Controversy"
(1903) Albert Bernal/E
The boos of the crowd during the premiere marked the confrontation between classicism and romanticism.
In 1827, at the age of 25, Hugo wrote the long and difficult to put on the stage of the play "Cromwell", published the "< Cromwell > Preface", and proposed that the main play is an epic of modern people, which should be mixed with the sublime and funny, reflect the changes of life, and oppose the rules of classicism. It was this novel and bold prologue that sounded the clarion call of French Romantic drama. In 1830, another of his plays, Hernani (also translated as Onani), was staged, marking the true establishment of the historical status of Romantic theater. Hugo's plays embody the highest achievement of the Aesthetics of French Romantic Theater.
French professor Arno Rastai, who compiled a single edition of Hugo's book "The Free Plays", recorded in the article: In his lifetime, Hugo wrote 25 plays and created 570 characters.
Recently, with the exhibition "Victor Hugo: The Heart of a Genius" and the forum "Hugo's Theatrical Works and Translations", readers and audiences in Shanghai have been able to understand the literary giant's talents in painting, drama, poetry, decorative arts and other aspects from many aspects, such as discovering a new world and knowing a Hugo that is "as vast as the sea".
Pearl Museum Hugo Drama Theme Forum Scene
Today, why should we talk about Hugo's drama?
Recently, pearl art museum, together with the Young Translators Salon of the Shanghai Translators Association, invited Chinese and French theater experts and French translators to hold a forum on "Hugo's Dramatic Works and Translations", combined with the visual art presentation of Hugo's dramatic works in the exhibition, analyzing the romantic drama flow represented by Hugo from multiple perspectives, as well as the translation of Hugo's famous drama in China and the adaptation of Yue opera, and jointly exploring the significance and value of Hugo's drama in different eras and regional contexts.
According to the organizers, the exhibition deliberately selects four of Hugo's most representative theatrical works, from the theater controversy scene of the premiere of "Hernani" to the plot depiction of its last act, from the prop display of "Ruy Brass" in the 19th century to its character image depiction, from the single portrait in "Lucrece Borzhya" to the grand war group portrait of "Castle Garrison", through the different perspectives of Hugo's contemporaries, presenting the most intuitive aesthetic and historical images of the times to Shanghai audiences.
Oil on canvas, "Hernani: The Last Act", (1903)
Edward Fournier/E
"Today, why are we talking about Hugo's drama?" As the host of this theme forum, Yuan Li, director of the French Department of the School of Foreign Languages of Fudan University and vice president of the Shanghai Translators Association, recalled her situation when she first went to school in France, "When I was studying in France before, when I talked about Hugo, the teacher would not say his poems or his novels. Why? Because his plays had too much influence on the history of French literature. Most of the reading of novels and poems is a personal act, but after all, the drama can have a prescribed scene, there is an occasion, if it is performed 50 times in a row, Hugo has a revolutionary, subversive play, with the power to directly hit the audience's heart, bringing greater impact to this era. ”
She introduces the translation origins of Hugo's theatrical works in China. She said that Hugo's drama also has a deep relationship with the Chinese stage. Hugo's first theatrical work introduced to China was "Angelo", which was translated into Chinese in 1910, attracting different translators and writers such as Bao Tianxiao, Xu Zhuoduo, Zeng Pu, Zhang Daofan and so on to retranslate and adapt, appearing under different translations such as "Sacrifice", "Silver Bottle Complaint", and "An Rile", and later became a drama "Di Si Niang" that was staged many times on the Chinese stage.
Oil on canvas "Castle Garrison" (1903)
Georges-Anthony Rosh Gross/Painted
It was the last play Hugo wrote during his lifetime, marking the end of his romantic theatrical career and a temporary interruption in Hugo's career as a writer after the unexpected death of his eldest daughter Leopoldina.
The Yue opera "Hugo" has been performed more than 50 times in Shanghai
Dr. Li Shengfeng, a member of the Shanghai Translators Association, who has always paid attention to Sino-French cultural exchanges and modern and contemporary opera, introduced the experience of adapting Hugo's famous drama "Onani" into the Yue opera "Heroes and Beauties" in the 1950s. It was also the first foreign retranslation drama on the Yue opera stage to maintain "foreigners' dresses" and perform in the image of foreigners, which was called "an unprecedented grand event in history" by the propaganda at that time.
Cover of Yue opera "Heroes and Beauties" instruction manual (courtesy of Li Shengfeng)
"At that time, there was already a certain number of foreign translated plays performed on the Stage of Yue Opera, but they were all localized. For example, "Love in Mountains and Rivers", adapted from "Three Musketeers", grafts the original work with the story of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in China. Adapted from "La Traviata", "Tears of Incense Notes" also directly moved the place where the story takes place to China. Relatively speaking, works like "Heroes and Beauties" that maintain foreigners' dresses and are basically presented in the original form of foreign works are very rare. At that time, the propaganda said 'the set costume is completely Western', which emphasized this point and was an important selling point. Li Shengfeng said.
Yin Guifang as Onani, Zhang Yin as Su'er (courtesy of Li Shengfeng)
From December 27, 1950 to January 23, 1951, the Fanghua Theater troupe performed "Heroes and Beauties" for 27 consecutive days at the Jindu Grand Theatre, performing as many as 50 times. Li Shengfeng said.
Yin Xiaofang as King Carlo (courtesy of Li Shengfeng)
At the forum, Gong Baorong, professor of Shanghai Theater Academy, Li Dandan, executive director and curator of Pearl Art Museum, and laurent Gutmann, director of the French National Academy of Drama, also made speeches on the themes of "Why romantic drama led by Hugo is not lucky for long", "Victor Hugo's Dramatic Works and Visual Arts", and "Hugo Drama in the Eyes of French Directors".
What else can you "see" outside of the exhibition?
"Resurrection" Hugo plays
On the evening of the academic forum, pearl art museum cooperated with the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Lyon in France and the International Drama Studio (Yuan Theatre) of Shanghai Normal University to bring the Hugo play "One Thousand Francs Bounty" brought by Chinese and French actors.
During the island exile, Hugo, while writing the novel "The Man with the Smiley Face", also successively wrote a number of innovative content, relaxed styles, bizarre ideas, and social realism short plays, and collected them into "Free Drama Collection". In 1886, a year after Hugo's death, the collection of plays was published as a posthumous work.
The modern prose drama "A Thousand Francs Bounty" is included. The story revolves around the topic of money and society, and has attracted much attention over the years because of its connection to the spiritual world of Les Misérables. In 2002, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Hugo's birth, the play was staged in Beijing under the name of "A Thousand Yuan Bounty".
Pearl Museum hopes to explore and expand the functional boundaries of the museum through various thematic activities. As Ms. Li Dandan, Executive Director and Curator of Pearl Art Museum, said: "We hope that Pearl Art Museum will become a platform for scholars and audiences of all disciplines and categories to exchange and dialogue, not only across fields, but also into life." ”
Translation competition, with Hugo
Pearl Art Museum, together with the Shanghai French Training Center, with the strong support of the Consulate General of France in Shanghai and the Paris Museum Alliance (Hugo's Former Residence Museum), jointly launched the "Walk with Hugo" French poetry translation competition. From August 28 to September 26, 2019, Pearl Art Museum received a total of 326 valid entries. The competition selected 16 first, second and third prizes and excellent awards such as Fang Fang, Hu Xiaowen and Zhang Yuhan, and the award ceremony was held at the Pearl Art Museum on November 11.
The manuscript was preliminarily selected by the Shanghai French Training Center, and Yu Zhongxian, a professor at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Yuan Xiaoyi, dean of the School of Foreign Chinese of East China Normal University, were specially invited to serve as the final selection judges, "This translation selected five poems by Hugo. These poems are well chosen, although it is not difficult to understand, but the mood of the poet who wrote them in different periods, the rhythm of the poem, and the imagery are worth repeating in translation. Yuan Xiaoyi said.
Attached: First Prize Fang Fang (Chen Shiyu) Award-winning translation
The sun is setting...
Autumn Leaves Collection
Today's sun sinks into a sea of clouds
Tomorrow the storm is coming, and there is silence in the evening and night
Then at dawn, the thick morning mist refracts the brilliance
Then into the night, then at dawn, time never escapes!
The days pass in a hurry, in groups, in thousands and thousands
Glide across the ocean and fly over the mountains
Skim over the sparkling river and over the wild woods
There beloved undead float like a cryptic ode
As for the face of the water, the amount of the mountain
Ripples are not old, trees are evergreen
New every day; small rivers in the countryside
The source peaks into the current, day and night
But I, under the weight of the day, lowered my head
Dying, cooling, even with the sun shining overhead
I am leaving, on the occasion of the feast
The world has nothing to lose, it is still vast and gorgeous!
(Unless otherwise specified, the photos in this article are provided by Pearl Art Museum)
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