1. The Encounter of Zheng and Peking Opera

On February 17, 2021, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Ox, young guzheng performer Shang Jingya performed "Spring Scenery Harmony · Wan Nian Huan" - Zheng Xi Ya Le Peking Opera Guzheng Concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. , was warmly welcomed by the audience.

This is the Beijing Peking Opera Company following the "Chinese Year of Zheng Opera - Shang Jingya Peking Opera·Guzheng Concert" (2017), "When Guzheng Meets Peking Opera - Shang Jingya Enjoying Party" (2019), Beijing Opera Zheng Shang - "Peking Opera" After the "Guzheng Enjoying Party" (2020), it is another staged achievement on the road of exploration of "Zheng + Peking Opera". Since 2016, the performance forms and contents of several concerts have been continuously enriched and updated, which can be described as progressive. If the previous performances are still a series of single programs, then this performance in 2021 is full of design sense. Zheng and Peking Opera masters and bands perform on the same stage, which is closer to Peking Opera. It is a feature of comprehensive stage art. . The overall style of the concert is fresh and elegant, unique and novel, full of vitality and a sense of the times. No matter from the content, sequence, actors' images, voiceovers, stage design, etc., it gives people a feeling of being scattered and integrated.

Works are the key to supporting a performance. The whole concert is divided into six sections. Among them are representative works of genres such as Zheng and Peking Opera Laosheng, Tsing Yi, Hualian and other genres, "Dingjun Mountain", "Drunken Concubine", "The Overlord and Farewell My Concubine", which are derived from Peking Opera songs "Wan Nian Huan", "Deep Night" and "Spring Scenery" and other works, excerpts from the modern Peking Opera "Take Tiger Mountain by Wisdom"; "Drunken · Hundred Flowers Pavilion" (Fang Jian's song), "Moon Full Court" (Huang Zhenyu's song), and Shang Jingya's first song this time. The original works "Landscape, Encountering Friends" and "Women's Story, Chinese Dream" (cooperating with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra).

As an outstanding young guzheng performer of the Beijing Opera House, Shang Jingya has completed the personalized second creation of each piece with excellent performance standards, presenting the audience with a refreshing and all-round experience of the Beijing tune and Beijing rhythm, making the audience feel great. Eyes open. At the concert, famous Peking Opera masters Tan Xiaozeng, Hu Wenge, Yang Shaopeng, Li Yang and other stars pushed Shang Jingya, the "corner", to the front of the stage and played the leading role. Hold up a gorgeous turn and make a wonderful appearance of a Beijing rhyme drama, and win a lot of prizes.

2. Innovative thinking, common prosperity and win-win

The combination of Zheng and Peking Opera is an innovation in the new era, which can be described as mutual prosperity and win-win. While promoting mutual development, it also provides an experimental example for the survival of traditional art varieties in the contemporary era.

(1) The "fire" of the zheng expanded the audience of Peking Opera

The zheng has risen and fallen several times in the long history of more than 2,000 years. In the early 20th century, the traditional art of zheng music was scattered in various places and was not paid much attention to. Since the "May 4th" New Culture Movement, influenced by Western music culture, the ancient instrument of the zheng has opened a modern "new life" in contemporary times: through the development of polyphonic thinking, modern composition techniques such as harmony and polyphony are emphasized. Using a variety of difficult techniques such as rapid fingering, developing a variety of sound areas for musical instruments, etc., the performance and potential in the interpretation of modern music have been continuously excavated. Therefore, it is both old and young, with great tension and potential both in terms of the instrument itself and the culture it carries. Various forms of modern zheng music works enrich the contemporary music library and meet people's diversified aesthetic needs. At present, there are nearly 10 million people studying the zheng in mainland China alone. In contrast, Peking Opera, which has a history of more than 200 years and is known as the "quintessence of the country", has not developed so well in contemporary times. At this time, by making good use of the zheng's drainage function, some groups who love zheng can be brought into the group of Peking Opera, so that the current development of Peking opera art can enter their lives and their cultural vision, from the previous "Zheng + The performance of the "Peking Opera" concert shows that many guzheng audiences have begun to pay attention to Peking Opera and turn their attention to Peking Opera.

(2) Zheng music returns to the beauty of "sound tune"

Zheng is an authentic traditional Chinese musical instrument, known for its charm. The structure and shape of the zheng is based on the piano code, and it is divided into two performance areas: left and right: in traditional playing techniques, "playing with the right hand, pressing with the left hand", through kneading, chant, pressing, shaking, sliding and other skills It can produce ever-changing charm, the so-called "three-point play, seven-point press", "harmony in sound and rhyme", and "rhyme is its soul". In modern works, due to the needs of harmony and polyphony, the functions of the left and right hands of the zheng have changed. In particular, the left hand has expanded from the traditional function of "doing rhyme according to the job" to participating in the sound picking on the right side of the zheng code, sharing with the right hand. Taking on the task of playing the melody, this creates a real paradox: when the left hand is involved in picking sounds and is busy with the right hand to complete fast and difficult playing skills, it is difficult to take into account its function of retouching and rhyme. Therefore, the highly modernized development of zheng music has also resulted in the loss of its charm to varying degrees, and the beauty of the charm in zheng music has gradually become far away from us. And when the zheng is performing the "Beijing tune and Beijing rhythm" in Peking Opera, people seem to have found a long-lost zheng music beauty: that is the beauty of the "voice tune".

For example, in the zheng song "The Overlord and the Concubine", Shang Jingya drew on the elements of the music such as "Nan Bangzi", "Gaixia Ge", "Chu Ge" and "Juli Mountain" in the classic Mei school play "Farewell My Concubine", and developed it into an independent one. The melody passage of the zheng imitates the singing of Tsing Yi with its unique timbre, and at the same time sets off the chanting, and it is perfectly matched with a series of stage movements such as dance and sword dancing of the actors. Its familiar melody and fascinating charm linger in the ears for a long time. , wandering in the heart. Another example is the singing of Mei Lanfang's "Drunken Concubine", which is familiar to the audience. In this work of the same name, Shang Jingya, by properly grasping the melodious and changeable timbre of the zheng, highlights the lines of the singing voice and enriches its color. , full of Beijing accents. Zheng and Peking Opera exactly match each other in this point, satisfying the audience's aesthetic needs for the return of Zheng music. This is actually the way of "instrumental vocalization".

At the end of the "Cultural Revolution", a group of top performers of traditional Chinese music once carried out the experimental work of "instrumental vocalization" in the "Recording and Video Group". They learned from famous Peking Opera masters such as Li Shiji, Li Muliang and Tang Zaixin. At that time, Xiang Sihua was the representative of the zheng world. She transplanted works such as "Wenji Returns to Han", "Catch and Fangsu Store", "Wolong Hanging Filial Piety", "Xiaoyaojin" and other works based on Peking Opera arias. Among them, "Wenji Returns to Han" is the most outstanding. In order to describe this singing performance, the author fully displays the elegant, soft, delicate and subtle playing techniques of the guzheng. , heavy, fast, slow and other subtle changes, the artistic effect of this singing is incisively and vividly expressed. The experiment of "Vocalization of Instrumental Music" is a very meaningful work, and it is also an important way for the development of Chinese national instrumental music. Unfortunately, this work did not last and was gradually forgotten by people. ① Today, Shang Jingya's approach of "Zheng + Peking Opera" is to continue the predecessors, expand, continue to deepen, expand, refine, and refine on the basis of Peking Opera, and cooperate to produce new works.

(3) Keeping upright and innovating by analogy

Peking Opera has a consensus in the development process of more than two hundred years, that is, the premise and foundation of innovation is to keep its roots. This time, the combination of Zheng and Peking Opera also conforms to the trend, adhering to the principle of keeping integrity and innovation.

Just as Mr. Mei Lanfang introduced the erhu to the Peking Opera Band, now the Peking Opera Band has added zheng and other national musical instruments to follow this tradition. In 1923, when Mei Lanfang rehearsed "Xishi", in order to increase the thickness and richness of the accompaniment music, he worked with Xu Lanyuan and Wang Shaoqing to add erhu to the band through many attempts, making it one of the "three major pieces" of accompaniment instruments in the field. One, and has continued to this day. With the changes of the times, in order to enrich the musical performance of the newly created repertoire and meet the actual needs of the band, the Peking Opera Theatre has gradually introduced national musical instruments such as the zheng, pipa, Zhongruan, and Daruan. The sound between the various parts has played a certain role, especially some special sounds of the zheng have the advantage of rendering and setting off the overall atmosphere in many scenes. It is in this way that the combination of Zheng and Peking Opera is possible. However, the zheng is still awkward in the Peking Opera band, especially in the accompaniment of the traditional opera, and many times it "cannot be used for work". As a guzheng player in Beijing Peking Opera House, Shang Jingya has long considered how to use zheng to do something for Peking Opera. In 2012, with the encouragement of Peking Opera artist Mr. Mei Baojiu, Shang Jingya started to compose the zheng piece "Farewell My Concubine". Over the past ten years, with the strong support of the leaders of the Peking Opera Academy and her colleagues, she has insisted on music creation, and has explored the multi-angle and multi-dimensional cross-border integration of Zheng and Peking Opera voices, Peking Opera songs, Peking Opera program performances, and other Peking Opera elements. a new road. In 2020, his works were selected for the Beijing Culture and Art Fund Project and the National Art Fund Project.

The combination of Peking opera and zheng has been combined and launched in the form of a concert, which also follows the innovative principle of "moving without changing shape". It is highlighted that the works of the concert all respect, learn from and draw on the traditional voice of Peking opera. It is created by combining modern composition techniques and performance techniques on the basis of performance programs. For example, in [Wan Nian Huan] (the name of the song is derived from the Beijing Hu tune of the same name created by Wu Hua and the tune of the same name in Peking Opera [Wan Nian Huan]), Shang Jingya infiltrated the traditional Peking Opera voices Xipi and Erhuang into the melody lines, and Jinghu played the role of the zheng. Contrasting voices, using sippy bars throughout. Another example is "The Story of Women: The Chinese Dream". The three movements of the whole piece are based on the preservation of traditional Peking Opera accents, combined with traditional zheng performance techniques and modern techniques, and infuse the stylized and freehand aesthetic elements of Peking Opera into the work. The first movement "Spring Day Jinghe" takes the beautiful and pleasant melody of the traditional Peking Opera song "Spring Day Jinghe" as the main musical motive. Through the traditional and fast modern techniques of pressing, rubbing, shaking and sliding the zheng, the theme melody is constantly changing and developing. , in order to realize the concept of "paying tribute to traditional culture". The second movement, "The Heroine of Women", adopts the section "Gao Piao Zi" "Feng Xiaoxiao" sung by Mu Guiying in "The Female General of the Yang Family". In the vocal characteristics, pop music elements are appropriately integrated, and the hero's sassy demeanor is displayed with a strong sense of rhythm and the atmosphere of the times. The third movement "The World Returns to the Heart" incorporates the stylized elements of Peking Opera gongs and drums. The national percussion music and Western symphony complement each other. The harmony and resonance of various acoustic elements show a high-spirited mood and a positive spirit.

In the contemporary era when multimedia is prevalent, the innovation of communication and publicity methods helps to pass on the classic art and good repertoire to a certain extent. This cross-border integration of zheng and Peking Opera explores the brand effect of the new generation of opera and instrumental music art, providing a successful experimental example, which can be extended to the combination of other ethnic musical instruments and opera music in due course. This road is still being explored, and it is very important that as a "Jiaoer" musical instrument, it must position itself and be flexibly laid out. When it should be a safflower, be a safflower, and when it should be a green leaf, be a green leaf. , firmly grasp the essence of "the elements of opera are the soul", on this basis, closely combine the musical instruments with the elements of opera, give full play to the dynamism of the musical instruments in a timely manner, tap the potential, and give life and brilliance to the new era of instrumental music and opera art .

In 2020, the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee designated "The Overlord and Yu Concubine", "Women's Tale: Chinese Dream" and "Spring Day Harmony" to perform in the United States and Dominica. This is an international promotion of Chinese folk music, and Jingya has successfully performed completed this task. In 2021, Shang Jingya and her team will also tour the country and use various forms to promote Peking Opera and traditional music art. Both Zheng and Peking Opera are the essence of our excellent traditional culture. The ultimate goal of combining the two in the new era is to carry forward our traditional culture. Not only in China, but also let Chinese traditional culture go out, let the world understand China, and let music culture build a bridge for communication and integration.