The art of opera is a kind of drama that restores absurd and bizarre or popular stories through artistic processing, giving them a deep inner spirit. This inner quality reaches people's hearts through the words and tones of the opera artists, arousing yearning and resonance.
After the accumulation of history, generations of artists have left a strong and colorful brush and ink in the field of opera art, forming a profound and long-standing Chinese opera art. Today, there are still countless opera artists who are inheriting and carrying forward this art, and Li Shengsu, as a leading scholar of the Mei School, is undoubtedly one of them.
Li Shengsu: "One minute on stage, ten years off stage." She used her own experience to tell us that success in any field is not achieved overnight, and it needs to be tempered and worked hard for a long time.
Lee Seung-su has had a strong interest in opera since he was a child, and began to study opera at the age of ten. From the Yu Opera Troupe, Hebei Art School to the Handan Peking Opera Troupe, she has experienced a variety of different opera environments and roles, and finally became a highly recognized opera artist with her talent and hard work.
Her story tells us that with strong faith and perseverance, we can achieve our dreams.
Under the careful guidance of Qi Lanqiu, Li Shengsu focused on learning opera arts such as Tsing Yi and Hua Dan, and constantly accumulated knowledge of opera. In areas such as opera, personal effort is important, but the guidance of the master is also indispensable.
Although Lee has always admired the Mei faction, he lacks the opportunity to further his studies. However,"The harder you work, the luckier you get"Li Shengsu, in the passage of time, finally met the guide of life - Mei Lanfang's youngest son Mei Baojiu.
He is a descendant of the Mei School and a master in the field of opera.
Lee Seung Su's attainments in the art of opera have become more and more sophisticated, and he has gradually grown from the inheritor of the Mei School to a leader in the industry. Because of the true biography of the Mei faction, she is often compared to Mei Lanfang.
This seemingly humble sentence actually reveals Lee's deep understanding of the art of opera.
Li Shengsu said in one sentence: no one can replace Mei Lanfang. In that era of brilliant opera art, Mei Lanfang led the ** alone, and no one was invincible. In China, the Meipai Peking Opera he founded is like an insurmountable artistic peak, promoting the revolutionary change of Peking Opera.
Internationally, he is the pioneer of Chinese opera art to the world, and countless overseas celebrities have developed a strong interest and deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture because of him.
In short, Mei Lanfang's opera artistic achievements have reached the peak of modern times, whether it is Li Shengsu or any other opera artist, it is extremely difficult to surpass Mei Lanfang's deep-rooted status, or to reach a level that is on par with her.
Mei Lanfang's artistic influence has far exceeded the scope of opera art, and she has performed well in many fields such as calligraphy and painting, and even won the respect of everyone with her heroic courage in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
His achievements have become an insurmountable peak, and Lee Seung-su also admits that he cannot surpass Mei Lanfang. Therefore, Lee Seung-su's goal is not to become Mei Lanfang, but to get as close to his influence as possible.
Mei Lanfang is the founder of the Mei School of Peking Opera, while Li Shengsu is an important representative of the contemporary Mei School. In order to understand and appreciate Li Shengsu's artistic persistence, we must first understand the Mei School, and to understand the Mei School, we must first understand Mei Lanfang.
Therefore, the deep meaning behind this sentence of Lee Shengsu can only be truly understood through an in-depth understanding of the art of the Mei School and Mei Lanfang.
What are the characteristics of the plum pie? It is "no characteristic", or there is no particularly outstanding feature at the same time, but it shows a unique style everywhere. For the artists of the Mei School, their artistic career begins with imitating their predecessors, but in the process, they incorporate their own understanding and characteristics, making the original repertoire and characters more personal.
Therefore, strictly speaking, the Mei School itself does not have specific characteristics, but every Mei School artist has their own characteristics, because they are all based on their predecessors, integrating their own cognition and characteristics, and transforming the scripts and characters created by their predecessors into their own.
For example, Master Mei Lanfang, although he studied under other opera arts, he also dabbled in many fields such as calligraphy and painting, treasure appreciation, etc., which not only increased his artistic atmosphere, but also one of his unique features.
Chinese critics and dramatists once commented on him: "He is a diligent and studious actor, who has seriously studied the traditional culture of the motherland in many aspects such as classical literature, Chinese painting, ethnic **, national dance, folklore, phonology and costume science since he was young, and integrated this knowledge into his art, thus creating a large number of excellent repertoire and forming an art school with a unique style and demeanor - Mei School." ”
This is the core of Mei Lanfang and Mei Pai, which is the continuous innovation that integrates its own characteristics. Similarly, for Li Shengsu, the successor of the Mei faction, if she just tries to "become Mei Lanfang", then she is destined to fail to become Mei Lanfang, and will even drift away from the Mei faction.
On the contrary, she should give full play to her own characteristics while maintaining the style of the Mei School, and create works with more personality and depth, so as to continue the artistic life of the Mei School.
Times are constantly changing, and no matter what kind of art it is, in order to survive, it must keep up with the pace of the times and carry out self-transformation, and opera is no exception. Therefore, in order to make the Mei School evergreen in the Peking Opera industry forever, it is necessary to keep up with the trend of the times and constantly seek changes.
For Li Shengsu, considering the continuous innovation requirements of Meipai art and the trend of the development of opera art with the times, she must also make self-breakthroughs while learning from the experience of her predecessors.
This is something that Lee Seung-su has been working hard to practice, which has also made her a pivotal position in the field of contemporary opera. Among the many evaluations of her, "strong innovation" is the most unanimous, and this characteristic is derived from the core spirit of Meipai.
Lee Seung-su, a name that shines brightly in the world of opera art. Her career was full of brilliance: in 1991, she was transferred to the Shanxi Peking Opera Company as a leading actor and became the head of the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera Troupe.
In 2001, she was transferred to the Second Troupe of the China Peking Opera Company, where she served as the head of the First Troupe of the National Peking Opera Company of China until 2010. This seems to be an inevitable way to reach a certain height, but in fact, it is another level of deepening and sublimation of Li Shengsu's opera art.
In her artistic concept, "carrying on the past and forging ahead into the future" occupies an important position. In the stage of "carrying on the past", she studied traditional opera deeply and absorbed the essence. In the stage of "opening up", she innovated on this basis and gave new vitality to traditional opera.
Even in 1991, when he became the head of the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera Troupe, Li Shengsu had already reached a new height. However, she was not satisfied with this.
On the contrary, she maintains an enterprising spirit, and constantly seeks out seniors in the field of opera to learn from, such as Liu Yuantong, He Junying and other famous artists, so as to enrich her knowledge and accumulation of traditional opera.
This spirit has made her go further and further on the road of opera art, and she has become an evergreen tree in the contemporary opera art world.
After reaping these valuable assets, Lee did not blindly follow the tradition, but skillfully integrated the existing cognition and his own interpretation of the role, injecting new vitality into the classics.
Not only that, just as Master Mei Lanfang has inspired innovative ideas in the field of calligraphy and painting, Li Shengsu is also continuing to deepen himself and seek breakthroughs. In general, Li Shengsu cannot become Mei Lanfang, because they are in different eras and each plays a unique role in the development of opera.
It is undeniable that Mei Lanfang and Li Shengsu played a crucial role in the development of opera. It is precisely because of these generations of innovators that the art of opera has been revitalized in every era and has been passed on.
For any art genre to achieve further development in the new era, the necessary changes are required.