Director Sun Guiyuan (Wen Yao/Photo)
Stills from "Di Nu Hua"
Yesterday morning, under the guidance of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism, and sponsored by the National Peking Opera House, Guangzhou Cantonese Opera House and the Red Line Women's Art Center, the "Beijing-Cantonese Gathering - Lecture on the Art of Opera Directors" was brilliantly held at the Red Line Women's Art Center.
This lecture was specially invited to the National Peking Theatre National First Class Director Sun Guiyuan to give a lecture, he vividly told the artistic characteristics and creative process of Peking Opera "Emperor Girl Flower", guided the audience to appreciate the artistic beauty of the play, shared with the audience the experience of opera creation over the years, and won the warm welcome of the fans of the scene.
Text/Guangzhou Daily all-media reporter Moschig
Correspondent Wen Yao
Peking Opera and Local Opera have always learned and grown from each other
"The exchange of Peking Opera and Cantonese Opera has a long history, and in the past, there were Cantonese opera masters Mr. Hongxinnu and Peking Opera masters Mr. Mei Lanfang and Mr. Cheng Yanqiu, who had close contacts and often discussed and studied, and it was they who opened the door to the exchange of the two major dramas." Li Junsheng, a well-known Cantonese opera performance artist and winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, said, "Peking Opera and Cantonese opera have always paid attention to each other, exchanged and learned from each other in terms of fine creation, talent training and artistic exchanges."
"This lecture can be said to be the collision and exchange between Peking Opera and Cantonese opera to continue the previous generations of artistic masters. There are more than 300 kinds of dramas in the country, and the regional culture and history are not the same, but Peking Opera and local opera are of the same origin, and have always learned and grown from each other. Director Sun Guiyuan pointed out that the adaptation of "Imperial Girl Flower" is a classic performance of Peking Opera's ability to absorb local dramas, such as "Mei Lanfang adapted and transplanted the Yu opera "Mu Guiying Hangs Shuai", Liu Changyu adapted the Puxian opera "Spring Grass Breaking into the Hall", and the Yang opera "Hundred Years of Hanging Shuai" was adapted into "Yangmen Female General".
Director Sun Guiyuan also explained and analyzed the artistic characteristics and creative process of each scene of Peking Opera "Emperor Girl Flower" for the audience, and successively invited Dai Zhongyu, Hu Bin, Zhu Hong, Liu Lei and other outstanding young Peking Opera actors to perform on-site performances. Among them, Dai Zhongyu and Hu Bin performed the "Shu Meng" excerpt of the Peking Opera "Emperor Girl Flower"; Zhu Hong and Liu Lei performed the "An encounter" excerpt of the Peking Opera "Emperor Girl Flower".
Director Sun Guiyuan led the audience to deeply appreciate the artistic characteristics of the Peking Opera "Emperor Girl Flower" by carefully explaining a certain singing segment or body of the characters in the play. For example, when the "An Encounter" was folded, Princess Changping and Zhou Shixian exchanged duets between the inside and outside the nunnery door, showing the painful struggle of the two who wanted to see but did not dare to see in their hearts.
"Falling flowers are full of sky and closed moonlight..." Chen Zhenjiang and Li Jiayi, outstanding young Cantonese opera actors from the Cantonese Opera House in Guangzhou, performed the "Xiang Yao" fragment of the classic Cantonese opera "Emperor Girl Flower" at the lecture site. If the Cantonese opera "Emperor Girl Flower" is a classic, then the "Xiang Yao" in the play is a classic in the classic. For the adaptation of this highlight, director Sun Guiyuan said: "'XiangYao' is the climax of the whole play, I used the cello as a prelude to show the feelings of the two people clinging to each other, Princess Changping bowed to Zhou Shixian twice, showing her love and fortitude. ”
Skillfully blend the tone of Cantonese opera into Peking Opera
The Peking opera "Imperial Girl Flower" is based on the legend of the Qing Dynasty of the same name and the classic Cantonese opera, which lasted six years from preparation to performance. On the evening of March 17th, "Emperor Girl Flower", starring Peking Opera performance artists Li Shengsu and Yu Kuizhi, was staged at the Guangzhou Grand Theatre, and the actors performed with emotion, suppressing the singing voice, the performance of the drama everywhere, the delicate and sincere emotions, with the sound of Peking Opera Pi Huang, showing the Cantonese opera classics, so that the Yangcheng audience familiar with this work had a different kind of touch and surprise, and won the applause of the whole hall.
For the repertoire performed at the Guangzhou Grand Theatre, director Sun Guiyuan shared that "Emperor Girl Flower" is the first attempt of the National Peking Theatre to bring Guangdong's Cantonese opera classics to the Peking Opera stage, which is a great challenge for the director to create and rehearse and the actors to perform. On the basis of respecting the vocal cavity of Peking Opera, actors need to make bold breakthroughs through the adjustment of body movements and chanting tones to create a completely different character image.
In terms of composition, the Peking opera "Emperor Nü Hua" retains the ideological connotation and musical tune of the Cantonese opera "Emperor Nü Hua", skillfully blends the tone of Cantonese opera into Peking Opera, and uses the musical elements and artistic means of Peking Opera to achieve the integration of Cantonese opera and Peking Opera.
Director Sun Guiyuan frankly said that the adaptation of "Emperor Girl Flower" is a big challenge, "The so-called classic is well known and loved by the audience, and it is not an easy task for the audience to accept the adapted classic." Adapting classics is not simply copying, but focusing on adaptation, not only to retain the essence of the original work, but also to innovate in the form of expression."
At a recent sharing meeting at the Guangzhou Opera House, Yu Kuizhi and Li Shengsu shared with the audience the challenges they encountered in rehearsing "Emperor Girl Flower". Yu Kuizhi said that Zhou Shixian is a completely different image from the role he created on the stage before, the old students in Peking Opera mostly wear hair, and most of the interpretations are older roles, Zhou Shixian is a young man, when he first came into contact, he always had a sense of shortcomings, and later with more and more rehearsals, he continued to communicate with the director, enhanced the sense of belief in the role, and created a new role image. Li Shengsu said that Princess Changping is also very different from the roles of Yang Guifei and Mu Guiying that she has created in the past, in order to pay tribute to the classics, so the interpretation of the role should be constantly polished.
Author: Moschig
Source: Guangzhou Daily