Sing a good show for the people for a lifetime
The love of the people is the most fertile soil for the inheritance of opera.
Over the years, I have overcome many difficulties and brought high-quality and positive Qin Opera repertoires to the people, and the people have returned me with the most enthusiastic and simple emotions. This is a precious spiritual wealth on my artistic path.
General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the opening ceremony of the 11th National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the 10th National Congress of the Chinese Writers Association pointed out: "The majority of literary and art workers must adhere to the people-centered creative orientation, put the people in the highest position in their hearts, and decide whether the people are satisfied or not. As the highest standard for testing art, create more excellent works that meet the cultural needs of the people and enhance the spiritual strength of the people, so that the hundred gardens of literature and art will always bloom for the people." This reminds us that cultural inheritance and innovation cannot be separated from the support and love of the people.
Qin Opera is rooted in the countryside and has a solid mass foundation.
It originates from the artistic creation of the working people, the singing fully absorbs the characteristics of the Guanzhong dialect, and the artistic style is bold, rough and vigorous.
In the course of many years of grass-roots performances, I found that classic plays such as "The Case of Gu Mei", "Wudianpo" and "Dou E's Injustice" are familiar to everyone. Both the elderly and the middle-aged can sing a few words casually. Some young people are influenced by their elders. Next, I also learned a few things.
Qin Opera sings the folk customs of the water and soil and the spirit of the people, and it is still full of vitality after hundreds of years of development.
Opera art folk go, send the opera to the gate.
The love of the people is the most fertile soil for the inheritance of opera.
Over the years, I have overcome many difficulties and brought high-quality and positive Qin Opera repertoires to the people, and the people have returned me with the most enthusiastic and simple emotions. This is a precious spiritual wealth on my artistic path.
In the vast northwest region, grassroots troupes often have to struggle with severe cold when performing.
Once when we sent a play into the countryside, it was snowing heavily, freezing three feet, and the top of the hill behind the earthen bench was covered in white snow, so we had to wear makeup around the stove.
The costumes of Danjiao and Shengjiao are especially thin, but if they wear a lot of clothes inside, they cannot show the beauty of their costumes and figure, and the artistry of the repertoire will be compromised.
Everyone changed into their costumes without hesitation—no matter how cold it was, they had to persevere, and no matter how cold it was, they had to be high-spirited, because every performance carried the expectations of the audience.
The play "Spring River Moon" was performed that night. The theme was mother's love, and it showed the quality of an ordinary woman's kindness and selfless dedication to others.
My protagonist, Liu Mingyue, brought back a crying baby from the front of his house, helped the baby escape, and raised him as an adult.
Later, Liu Mingyue helped him return to his biological parents and reunite the family.
In the face of gold and silver treasures, glory and wealth, Liu Mingyue smiled and refused, and returned to the mountain village.
As a mother, I put my love for children into acting.
I acted from a little girl to an old woman with the most sincere emotions, and created characters with changing singing voices according to different age groups.
There was a parting scene in the play, I couldn't help shedding tears during the singing, and there was a sound of sobbing from the audience.
That night, the audience watched the performance in the open air for more than 3 hours under heavy snow.
After the performance, they went backstage to take pictures with the actors, and their love was beyond words.
At that moment, I understood the meaning of art to communicate the soul.
Approaching the common people can promote the innovative content and form of opera art and sing the connotation of the times.
For Qin Opera art to be innovative, the most direct and vivid materials are the real and vivid stories of the new era.
The Qin Opera play "Spring and Autumn in the Village", which I starred in, the theme of poverty alleviation, tells the story of the protagonist Wan Fenfang who went to Niuzuiliang Village as the first secretary of the village to help farmers build a poverty alleviation industrial base.
The plot of this work is all "trivial", but it is the stories around the wasteland remediation, saving farms in heavy rain, etc., showing the true face and fighting spirit of the front line of poverty alleviation.
The common people's stories make the repertoire full of life and the dramatic conflicts are reasonable and reasonable, avoiding the conceptualization and generalization of the narrative.
In terms of stage sets, costumes, singing, etc., the creative team makes innovations that are closer to the current reality according to the plot, so that the audience can hear it familiar and look real.
In addition, we also absorb the advantages of other art forms such as drama, dance, sketches, etc. according to the spiritual and cultural needs of the audience and the contemporary life style.
Only in this way can Qinqiang art keep pace with the times and maintain its vitality forever.
In recent years, our Western Qin Opera Research Institute has created and arranged many plays, including the modern Qin Opera drama "Red in the Mountains", which shows rural life and love stories, the Qin Opera historical drama "Da Qin Wengong" with ups and downs and grand scenes, and the world cultural heritage. The 44th cave of Maijishan Grottoes is the prototype of Maiji Hymn, which praises the good quality.
These repertoires contain the flavor of the times in content and form, and are constantly revised and improved according to audience feedback during the tour.
When I was 7 years old, because of my love, I proposed to my parents that I wanted to learn drama; when I was 9 years old, I entered the drama school and became the youngest student in the school.
In my career, many senior artists told me earnestly: "Singing a good show is also serving the people." With the enrichment of performance experience, I have a deeper understanding of this sentence.
I will continue to carry forward the fine traditions, take root in a fiery life, and sing a good show for the people all my life.
(The author is Yuan Yaya, a Qin Opera actor and President of the West Qin Opera Research Institute in Tianshui City, Gansu Province)