The waves of the water are songs, and the paddles and sails are songs. On December 2nd, the large-scale Peking Opera Symphony Suite "Beijing Grand Canal", produced by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and co-produced by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and the Beijing Opera House, premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (pictured), leading the audience to explore the historical and cultural story of the Grand Canal in the cross-border integration of symphony, Peking Opera and chorus, and to taste the profound history of the Grand Canal.
"Beijing Grand Canal" focuses on the Beijing section of the Grand Canal of China, deeply excavates the historical and cultural connotation of the Grand Canal of Beijing, and highlights the unique historical and cultural style of Beijing. After a year of meticulous collection, it is divided into 5 parts: the overture, the first movement "A Tower Shadow Sees Tongzhou", the second movement "Stars in the Sky Guo Shoujing", the third movement "Drifting Beijing City", and the fourth movement "Tribute to the Grand Canal", through the combination of the typical vocal cavities and symphonies of different genres of Peking Opera, the theme of each part is expressed in the form of a suite.
As an artistic innovation cooperated by the Symphony Orchestra and Peking Opera, "Beijing Grand Canal" encountered many challenges in the creation and rehearsal. Composer Yang Nailin introduced, taking the first movement "Tongzhou Trumpet Canal Man" as an example, if you want to show the vicissitudes and heroism of the Caoyun workers, "Tongzhou Trumpet" is indispensable, but there is no "trumpet" in Peking Opera, and the combination of the two is a big problem; the combination of Peking Opera and chorus is also a difficult point, and the choral actors are bel canto singing methods, which are different from the voices of Peking Opera actors; Peking Opera Band and Symphony Orchestra are two systems, and both must be acceptable when composing music, and they must be reflected together. "When we were creating, we always insisted on showing Both Peking Opera and being different from the Peking Opera performed on the Xiqu stage; both to show symphony, but also to have Chinese style and Chinese style." Yang Nailin said.
Similar problems were encountered in playing. Li Biao, artistic director of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, who directed the performance, said: "We can't play this work completely in accordance with the way of Peking Opera, but also add the characteristics of symphony, 'fusion' is the most difficult to do, such as how to match the symphony and the string parts of Peking Opera, when rehearsing, I will tell everyone not to imitate each other, to find common ground between the two, so that the performance is more comfortable and smoother." ”
Different from ordinary concerts, the chapters of "Beijing Grand Canal" are grand, and the narrative subjects and the time and space they are in often change between different singing segments. Director Kong Jie carefully studied each lyric, through the division of lighting, costumes and performance areas, so that the actors belonged to two different time and space of history and today, creating a contrast of far and near, solemnity and brightness, statement and reflection, so as to deepen the theme of the work, but also provide more psychological fulcrum for the actor's performance.
Since the Grand Canal of China was included in the World Cultural Heritage List, there have been many stage works on the theme of the Grand Canal, how can "Beijing Grand Canal" open up another way? Screenwriter Weng Si re-introduced that this work focuses on depicting the Beijing section of the Grand Canal, in which two landmark cultural events are depicted in a strong pen, one is that Huiban went north through the Grand Canal to Beijing 230 years ago, and developed a national quintessential Peking Opera on the thick soil of Beijing; the other is Cao Xueqin taking Zhangjiawan in Tongzhou as a wharf, repeatedly shuttling between the north and south of the canal, and finally completing the emperor's masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the history of Chinese literature on the outskirts of Beijing. When presenting the grand situation of Huiban entering Beijing, Du Zhenjie, Li Hongtu, Chi Xiaoqiu, Zhu Qiang, Chen Junjie, Zhang Huifang, Hu Wenge, Wang Yi, Yang Shaopeng and other Peking Opera performing artists all appeared. Hu Wenge and Tan Zhengyan sang "A Ship of Spring Wind Carrying Two Yellows" in the third movement, playing mei Lanfang and Tan Xinpei, two masters, respectively. As a disciple of Mei Pai, Hu Wenge's attempt to sing a newly created singing voice with the singing method of Male Dan is also a new attempt.
After watching the performance, Cai Fan, a professional consultant and water conservancy expert of "Beijing Grand Canal", said that the innovative use of the combination of Peking Opera and symphony in the work vividly showed the spiritual outlook of the Grand Canal, and to a large extent restored the past smoke clouds of the Beijing section of the Grand Canal.