Review of the 70-year course of Chinese national opera creation： heroic people and deep love singers in the great era
Stills of the Opera "Ma Xiangyang Going to the Countryside"
Stills of the opera "Wildfire and Spring Breeze Fight the Ancient City"
[Cultural observation]
The establishment of People’s Republic of China (PRC) has enabled our society as a whole to enter the period of peaceful construction from the war years, and provided a peaceful and stable environment for our opera creation. With the adjustment of academies and troupes in the early days of the founding of the Republic and the policy of "building regular and professional theater art", opera houses were set up in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Harbin and other cities, and opera troupes or song and dance theaters were also set up in the third headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army and some qualified military regions and some local provinces and cities, gathering a large number of experienced and talented opera artists; However, the boiling construction life of New China has greatly stimulated the creative passion and inspiration of opera artists, providing an excellent opportunity for the prosperity and development of China’s national opera.
The Glory of National Opera in 1950s and 1960s
The creation of national opera in the early days of the founding of New China has a natural flesh-and-blood relationship with the great success of the creation and performance of White-haired Girl and its foundation significance — — The theme of revolutionary struggle described in White-haired Girl absorbed the beneficial experience and expression of western operas, had a deep connection with Chinese folk music, especially traditional opera art, and had a strong national style and artistic character of appealing to both refined and popular tastes, which had a great influence on the creation of national operas in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Marriage of Young Heirs (composed by Kyle and written by Lany and Yang Lanchun), which was created and performed in 1953, is Kyle’s fourth opera after Couple Literacy, Zhou Zishan, a habitual bandit, and White-haired Girl, and it is also the first national comic opera in China that describes marriage autonomy and opposes feudal arranged system. In particular, the positive and negative experience in the music creation of White-haired Girl made Kyle put the dramatic thinking of Chinese music, which had laid the foundation for White-haired Girl, but failed to form a large structure by using plate-cavity thinking, in this play — — According to the plot of the play and the stipulation of the characters, the composer defined the musical style and tonal language of the opera as "Three Bangs (Shanxi Bangzi, Hebei Bangzi and Henan Bangzi)" (namely, Pingju, commonly known as ‘ Lotus drop ’ ）”； In the dramatic way of music development, the traditional opera board cavity thinking and structure are widely used to promote the plot, create the core aria of the main characters in the play, and shape the musical image of opera characters; In the play, Xiaoqin’s banqiang aria "The Clear Water Comes to the Blue Sky" describes the rich and complex psychological level of the lyric hero, with simple and natural music style and beautiful melody, which is still widely sung.
The national opera "Hongxia" (composed by Aring Zhang and written by Shihan), which premiered in 1957, took place in Jiangxi Soviet area in the late agrarian revolution. Hongxia is an ordinary rural girl in the local area. It coincides with the Red Army’s withdrawal from the Soviet area and its northward anti-Japanese movement. The enemy coerced Hongxia into telling the whereabouts of the Red Army by coercion, inducement and indiscriminate killing. In order to avoid unnecessary sacrifice, Hongxia designed to bring the enemy to Phoenix Ridge, where the Red Army gathered and annihilated it. Hongxia was shot and killed by white bandits. Before Hongxia’s sacrifice, a banqiang aria "I wish the Red Army on the Phoenix Ridge" was both weeping and stirring, and it was the most famous aria in the whole drama and widely circulated among the masses.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the famous national opera Honghu Red Guards (composed by Zhang Jingan and Uncle Ouyang Qian, and written by Yang Huizhao, Zhu Benhe and Mei Shaoshan) premiered. Its plot revolves around the life-and-death struggle between Honghu Red Guards led by our Party and Huba Pengbatian during the Agrarian Revolution. In music creation, the composer created Han Ying’s heroic image of being loyal to the revolution, loving her hometown infinitely, loving her comrades-in-arms and relatives affectionately, being brave and unyielding to the enemy through lyric short songs such as "Hong Hushui, Beating Waves" with strong local color of Honghu Lake and profound charm of Jingchu culture, and two dramatic plate-cavity arias such as "No Tears, No Sorrow" and "Seeing that the toiling people in the world are liberated". In January 1960, the 100th performance of the play was held in Huairentang, Zhongnanhai. Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi and other party and state leaders visited the theater and were deeply influenced by its vivid plot and beautiful music. At the end of the performance, Premier Zhou also took to the stage and sang "Hong Hushui, Beating Waves" with all the actors. Since then, a song "Hong Hushui, Waves and Waves" has been sung all over the country and is still one of the favorite lyric songs of the masses. And "No Tears, No Sorrow" and "Watching the toiling people in the world be liberated" are the required songs of national singers and vocal teaching materials of art colleges and universities.
The national opera Red Coral, which premiered in 1960 (composed by Wang Xiren, Hu Shiping and written by Zhong Zhao), happened on the eve of the liberation of coral island in the southeast coast. With the help of Wang Yonggang, a scout of our army, the fisherman’s girl, Shan Mei, unites the fishermen with her lover A Qing, outwitted the fishermen and cooperated with the army to liberate the whole island. The tonal materials of this drama are mainly drawn from Henan local operas. In order to make the whole drama music adapt to the musical style of the southeast coast where the opera plot takes place, tonal elements such as Huangmei Opera, Yue Opera, Donghai Fisherman’s Songs and Chants are also adopted in the drama. Among them, the sea breeze is a banqiang aria, with a low melody, deep and sincere feelings and strong artistic appeal.
The national opera Jiang Jie, which premiered in 1964 (composed by Yang Ming, Jiang Chunyang, and written by Yan Su), was based on the heroic deeds of Jiang Zhuyun’s martyr in the novel Red Rock. The musical material of this drama comes from Sichuan folk music tones, such as Sichuan folk songs, voiceless tones, high-pitched Sichuan operas, etc., and can also be heard from the folk music tones of Hangzhou Beach Spring, Suzhou Pingtan, Zhejiang Wu Opera, etc. The theme songs "Red Plum Zan" and "Embroidered Red Flag" written by using the ballad structure are poetic and meaningful, with catchy tones, which quickly spread among the audience after the premiere. However, the core arias created by using the rigid thinking and structure, such as "Revolution is as determined as steel in the end", "I dedicate my youth to communism" and "People in all continents laugh together", reveal Jiang Jie’s noble revolutionary sentiment and rich emotional world in different drama situations. On October 13th, 1964, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and other party and state leaders watched the performance of Jiang Jie in the Great Hall of the People and spoke highly of it.
As we all know, Yan ‘an Yangko Opera Movement and the birth of the opera "White-haired Girl" set off the first opera climax in the history of new literature and art in China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, represented by national operas, such as Marriage of Little Black Boys, Hongxia, Red Guards of Honghu Lake, Sanjie Liu, Red Coral and Jiang Jie, it created a gratifying situation and great prosperity in which national operas took the lead and formal operas and musical operas went hand in hand, which pushed the art of Chinese opera to the second climax in the 1950s and 1960s.
The feedback of national opera to other art categories
After the mid-1960s, due to complicated historical and practical reasons, and at the same time restrained by the theory that "China opera is China opera", China’s opera creation, including national opera, has become a smash hit. However, the successful experience and great artistic charm of national opera have deeply nourished the vast number of artists and had a far-reaching feedback on the music creation of other art categories at that time and thereafter. The most typical example is that the story, plot, characters, dramatic conflicts and most of the classic music of the ballet "White-haired Girl" all come from the national opera "White-haired Girl", which is an iron fact that no one can deny.
Moreover, the successful experience of national opera also had a feedback effect on the music creation of modern Peking Opera at that time. Its concrete manifestation is that in the music creation of dramas such as Taking Tiger Mountain by Intelligence, Harbor and Du Fu Mountain, the professional, three-dimensional dramatic thinking and the theme running through the development techniques and the wide use of Chinese and Western mixed bands have enhanced the sense of the times of Beijing opera music and enriched its dramatic expression.
The feedback function of national opera is also reflected in many "operas" created by composers such as Zhixin Wang, Wu Xiaoping, Wang Yougui and Meng Yong since the new period. From their representative works, Lanhuahua, Meng Jiangnv, Mulan Joining the Army, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Mei Lanfang, Yuji, Bawangyin, My Mother Kissing in Yimeng Mountain, Tears of Bamboos, Clouds of Xiaoxiang Water, Water Girl, Sketch of Shanzhai and A-mei Getting Married, we can all see that national operas are created by using plate-cavity thinking and structure.
The Double Treasures of National Opera in the New Period
After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, China entered a new period of reform and opening up. In the diversified opera concept and ecology, China’s opera and musical have developed rapidly and a number of outstanding plays have emerged; In contrast, although only two operas, Daughter of the Party and Wildfire and Spring Breeze Fighting the Ancient City, which were created and performed by the General Political Opera Troupe, came out, their overall ideological and artistic quality and extensive and lasting social influence made them indisputably the double treasures of national operas in the new era.
1991年首演的《党的女儿》（王祖皆、张卓娅等作曲，阎肃等编剧），系根据同名电影文学剧本改编而成。作为本剧第一主人公，田玉梅经历了生与死的考验、叛徒的骗局、同志的猜疑和误会、骨肉分离之苦、阶级姐妹悲惨境遇之痛、与党组织失去联系的迷惘和焦灼以及担心游击队误中敌人圈套的危机感和紧迫感等等；她在这些危机和磨难中历尽各种挫折以及血与火的考验，终于磨砺成为一个坚定的共产党员。
作曲家将江西民歌的抒情性因素和蒲剧音乐的戏剧性因素有机结合起来，创造出一种“坐北朝南”的音乐风格基调，使之既有鲜明的地方特色，又有较强的戏剧性张力，同时又与田玉梅扮演者彭丽媛的演唱风格相契合。剧中《血里火里又还魂》《来把叔公找寻》《生死与党心相连》《万里春色满家园》等大段成套唱腔，运用板腔体的结构原则以及不同板式组合和变化所造成的戏剧性张力，揭示田玉梅在不同戏剧情境下复杂的内心世界，从而丰富鲜活地完成了田玉梅音乐形象的塑造。
Following the Daughter of the Party, the General Political Opera Troupe launched the national opera Wildfire and Spring Breeze Fighting the Ancient City in 2005 (composed by Wang Zujie and Zhang Zhuoya, written by Meng Bing, and written by Wang Xiaoling and Meng Bing). The script basically follows the narrative structure, main plot and character relationship of Li Yingru’s novel of the same name, and adds a modern young woman, Sebrina, thus realizing the cross-time docking between history and reality and revealing the contemporary drama more intuitively. The musical language of the whole drama is based on Laoting drum, Hebei folk songs and northern opera music, and the musical expression system of the drama is composed of the interweaving and interweaving of a large set of aria with a board cavity, lyric short songs and aria with a song style. In particular, Yang Mu’s core aria "Niang in that Cloud" in the play gives a delicate, profound and poetic description of the revolutionary mother’s rich emotional level and complex psychological process, which has a strong dramatic and highly vocal artistic achievement and has important innovative value for the creation of aria in Chinese national opera.
The strong rise of national opera in the new era
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has entered a new era in Socialism with Chinese characteristics. In October 2014, the Supreme Leader held a symposium on literature and art in Beijing and delivered an important speech, calling on the national literary and art circles to "people-centered creative orientation", which greatly aroused the creative passion of opera artists in eulogizing the motherland, the party, the heroes, the people and the great era. Starting from the national tour of the 2015 edition of White-haired Girl, in 2017, the Ministry of Culture set up the "China National Opera Inheritance and Development Project" and issued a notice to the whole country to select the key supporting repertoires of national operas. In the past three years, there have been Ma Xiangyang’s Going to the Countryside, Song of Youth, Love in Songmaoling, Home Only with Love, Ying Xiong, Dust Settled and Yimeng Mountain. Besides the "Project", Yo Yo Luming Literature, an excellent national opera, has also emerged. Since the new era, the fate of "one-pulse single biography" of national opera has taken a dramatic turn because of the strong rise of many excellent plays in the new era.
The national opera "Ma Xiangyang Going to the Countryside" (composed by Zang Yunfei and written by Dai Lu and Lian Haiping) describes the theme of poverty alleviation through science and technology, and it is also the first national hi-fi opera since the new century. Its script, music and director art all contain a lot of humorous, relaxed and witty comedy elements, which has a strong effect of watching the drama. The theater often bursts into warm applause and knowing laughter. This play won the "Wenhua Award" at the 12th China Arts Festival.
The national opera "Yo Yo Luming Literature" (composed by Meng Weidong and written by Guo Caixue) takes Tu Youyou, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the highest national science and technology award, as the first protagonist, and through vivid plots and touching music, it shapes the intellectual image of this great contemporary female scientist, who is beautiful, talented, tender and determined. Later, this drama participated in the third China Opera Festival and the "Excellent National Opera Exhibition", which won wide acclaim from the audience and peers in the industry, bringing a fresh wind to the creation of realistic national operas in the new era. This play won the "Five One Project Award" in Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China.
In addition, the national opera "Dust Settled" (composed by Meng Weidong and written by Feng Baiming and Feng Bilie) is based on Alai’s novel of the same name. From the novel perspective of a second young master of Tibetan Tusi, it vividly and uniquely shows the theme of this era that serf liberation is the historical necessity of being a natural person. The national opera "Yimeng Mountain" (composed by Luan Kai and written by Wang Xiaoling and Li Wenxu) shows the deep affection between Yimeng Mountain people and the Eighth Route Army during the Anti-Japanese War with a high-spirited tone. The national opera "Only when there is love can there be a home" (composed by Wang Yuanping and written by Hu Yingming) is based on the story of Liu Defen, dean of a welfare home in Gongan County, Hubei Province, who has respected the elderly for 23 years and loved his children alone, showing the great love feelings of the little people.
In short, the creation of China’s national opera in the past 70 years has followed the pace of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s construction, carried out creative transformation and innovative development on the basis of the revolutionary tradition, aesthetic concept and successful experience of White-haired Girl, and has written its own brilliant chapters with classic plays such as Marriage of Little Black, Red Guards of Honghu Lake, Jiang Jie, Daughter of the Party, Wildfire and Spring Breeze Fighting the Ancient City. Since the beginning of the new era, under the guidance of the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader’s series of speeches on literary and artistic work, we have fully mobilized our high creative passion and artistic talent, and through the creation and performance of outstanding plays such as Ma Xiangyang’s Going to the Countryside, Yo Yo Luming Literature, The Dust Settles, Yimeng Mountain, etc., we have sent out affectionate songs for the heroic people and this great era in which we live.
(Author: Ju Qihong, the chief scholar of distinguished professor, Zhejiang Normal University, and the 2018 major project "Research on the Creation of China National Opera in the New Era" by the National Social Science Fund)