On the evening of December 20, 2023, the first Beijing Chamber Opera Festival hosted by Dahua City Performing Arts Center will conclude with the chamber opera "Zhuang Zhou's Death" written and composed by Wen Deqing. The play is commissioned by Dahua City Performing Arts Center, directed by Yi Liming and directed by Dong Chao, bringing together many outstanding singers, musicians, as well as professional stage and lighting costume design, presenting a wonderful performance for the audience.
Zhuang Zhou's Death is a chamber opera with profound connotation and unique artistic style, adapted from Lu Xun's "New Story Writing and Death". In terms of script creation, Wen Deqing broke the narrative structure of "Saving People, Deceiving People, and Oppressing People" in "Rising and Dead", and added the chapter of "Resurrection of Death" with the narrative structure of postmodern time theme that he is good at. The whole opera adopts a symmetrical structure of two acts and six scenes, the first act "Rise and Death" is composed of three scenes: Zhuang Zhou's prayer, the skeleton's resurrection, and the inspection and relief of the siege, and the second act "Rebirth" is composed of three scenes: the man's humiliation, Zhuangzi's return, and the man's resurrection. The play takes the story of "Zhuangzi and the Skeleton" as the core, and runs through multiple themes such as life and death, freedom and bondage, reality and surreality. Another highlight of the text design of the play is that the characters in the play come from different periods and spaces, including the Zhuangzi of the present world, the great god of the underworld, the man of Shang and the patrol police. Wen Deqing skillfully integrates modern life terms such as "wow", "my mobile phone" and "Nongfu Spring", and the ambiguous time and space environment not only gives the story new vitality and vitality, but also leads to far-reaching philosophical reflections in the absurdity.
In terms of creation, this opera continues Wen Deqing's "avant-garde" style. The pitch organization is based on six sets of ten-tone sequences, each of which is composed of two sets of pentatonic tones (5-35), and then forms a library of pantonal pitch materials constructed from twelve sets of pentatonic scales. On this basis, the composer verticalized the six sets of ten-tone sequences to further generate ten sets of six-tone harmonies, and then constructed all the pitch materials of his character theme and orchestra. In the creation of character themes, the composer borrowed the concept of the dominant motive of Wagner's music, and gave a unique theme according to the characteristics of each character's personality. The theme melody of Zhuangzi is centered on the pure fourths of C and F, supplemented by stretched melodic lines, expressing the proud image of Zhuangzi's spring breeze and idealistic spiritual outlook. In the play, the image of the man is shown as "simple and straightforward", and the composer chooses the key of D minor, using D, G, A, D as the basis of the melody, and shapes the character through a straight and repeated melody; The theme is mainly the minor second degree and the major third degree, aiming to show its feminine artistic conception; In the play, the director is elegant, hypocritical, and eager for power, and in the theme design, the method of alternating between the major third and the minor second degree is adopted to simulate the director's inner pursuit of continuous improvement; The theme of the inspector and the policeman is a triplet that wittily expresses the image characteristics of the powerful "pug". The above themes are all derived from the ten sets of sixths, and all themes contain fourths, fifths, and seconds. Through the central control of harmony and characteristic intervals, the composer ensures that the development of ** is "scattered but not dispersed". Not only that, in terms of rhythm design, the composer also uses the traditional Chinese Vena number series to numerically control the rhythm, so as to realize the concept of "instant transformation" that he pursues. This innovative technique was first applied to the percussion "Song of Sorrow" composed by him, and the "Traces" and "Splash Ink" series applied the concept of Vena CNC to a transcendent state. Wen Deqing adopts the "discourse" method of modernity, continuing the absurd style of Lu Xun's works. The 80-minute performance duration, the bursts of laughter coming from the theater and the deep thinking after the laughter are enough to show the audience's affirmation of the play. This work brings the modern ** closer to the audience.
In general, the chamber opera "Zhuang Zhou's Death" is not only a new interpretation of Zhuangzi's philosophical thoughts, but also a profound reflection on modern people's outlook on life. It is set in an absurd world that transcends time and space, and through dramatic additions to the plot, it shows the multiple aspects of life, and integrates the composer's thinking on the philosophy of life and death and deep humanistic care. As the composer said: "The vision of Zhuangzi's dream was realized by Lu Xun - the skeleton rises and dies, and I restore the skeleton - the skeleton returns to death and returns to nature, drawing a circle between life and death." Between Lu Xun and Zhuangzi, Wen Deqing chose to return to Zhuangzi's original text to design, that is, Zhuangzi's "Great Sect" said: "Dead life is also the same as night and day." "Zhuangzi believes that life and death are like the rotation of the four seasons, which is the manifestation of the laws of nature. Hanzi "resurrected" ** the deep meaning behind life and death, the man experienced the fate of "death-resurrection-resurrection", which is the presentation of Zhuangzi's concept of life and death, and also a metaphor for the survival dilemma of modern people. This work not only brings an unprecedented artistic experience to the audience, but also guides people to think about the meaning of life and how to seek spiritual transcendence in a limited life.
Zhou Xingwen. Photo by Wang Yidan.