“Tosca” at the rehearsal scene of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing in November 2022. (Photo provided by the performer)
At 17:29 in the evening, in the rehearsal hall on the fourth floor of the Shanghai Opera House, the main actors of Puccini’s opera “Tosca” have been rehearsing for one and a half hours. As the conductor of the play, Xu Zhong, director of the Shanghai Opera House, “ran” into the rehearsal hall. Before he was out of breath, his first sentence was – “I may have some changes (the part that has been rehearsed).” It turned out that in the past four hours, he had “soaked” for the play and the orchestra together. During the fine running-in, new inspirations are constantly bursting out.
Xu Zhong’s motion received an immediate positive response from the heroine Tosca, the famous soprano singer He Hui: “Change! I will definitely follow in your footsteps!” Although, in the past hour and a half, she The first act has been arranged with Han Peng and other leading actors. When He Hui was in her 20s, she played the role of “Tosca” in “Fight to Fame” at the Royal Opera House of Parma, Italy, which is known for its critical and demanding audience. So far, she has performed more than 100 performances of the play. For the rehearsal on February 15th, the actors and crew were divided into several groups, and they lined up from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Xu Zhong’s trot has become the epitome of “starting and sprinting” throughout the opera house. The play will usher in its premiere in Shanghai from the 24th to the 26th of this month. In the Shanghai Opera House these days, music and singing come and go. The impetus that enables the heads of troupes represented by Xu Zhong and He Hui, and internationally renowned artists to run out of the “acceleration” of artistic creation comes from the fact that the Shanghai performing arts market can’t wait for the full recovery. In the Shanghai Opera House alone, there was a sensation at the premiere of the opera “La Bohème” before, and then the original chorus “Revived Land” appeared at the “Shanghai Spring” International Music Festival in March. And in the middle of the year, Wagner’s classic masterpiece “The Flying Dutchman” will return. After that, there will be a number of new works such as the original opera “Return to the Voyage”, the national opera “March of the Volunteers”, and the original dance drama “Nine Years of Yonghe”…
Plays are played one after another, and performances are rushed to perform. Although it is early spring, the blooming flowers on the Shencheng stage are close at hand.
There is no “finish time” for art
“Xu Zhi, I feel like I should slow down a bit more for these few sentences.” After an affectionate chorus between Tosca and Cavaradossi, He Hui didn’t have time to enjoy the applause of the cast and crew, and instead, He Hui “picked” herself. In this regard, Xu Zhong fully affirmed her previous performance-“just right and very exciting”. It is hard to imagine such a scene happening to a soprano who has performed more than 100 performances of “Tosca” and has been active on the international opera stage all year round.
The consistency in every show is due to her humble, honest, and artistic attitude of excellence, as well as her emphasis on the domestic premiere of “Tosca”—if it wasn’t for this performance, He Hui might have gone to Italy to continue Opera career in Europe. It turned out that as early as October last year, the project, jointly produced by the National Center for the Performing Arts, the Shanghai Opera House, and the Shaanxi Grand Theater with top-notch resources, had started and was planned to be staged at the end of last year.
“Gathering such good resources and teams in China, everyone has invested so much effort and waited for so long, and I hope to present this beloved work to domestic audiences with the best appearance.” Not long after the New Year in his hometown of Xi’an, and Hui rushed to Shanghai again and entered the group for the third time. She told reporters that compared to the version she performed before, the choreography of this production is more concise and modern, which puts forward higher requirements for the performance of the actors. She said: “”Tosca” is like a drama-style opera. Every sentence may be a reversal of the plot. It not only tests the singing, but also tests the tacit understanding of the actors. Our gestures on the stage, every line of the libretto reflects The interpretation of inner changes must be very full.”
Partnering with He Hui is Han Peng, a young tenor singer from the Shanghai Opera House. He told reporters that facing two Italian scores that were as thick as a large dictionary, he returned to the crew after more than a month, and he was still drumming in his heart on the way here. Seeing the familiar scenery and props, the familiar feeling came again.”
Indeed, Italian libretto is a big challenge for domestic opera singers. The audience may not be sensitive, but in front of Xu Zhong, He Hui and other artists who have been active on the international stage and are familiar with the pronunciation of libretto in various languages, there is no room for ambiguity. The young actor who was the first to appear on the stage in the first act did not sing a few words, but was stopped by Xu Zhong: “I want to hear what you are singing clearly, and don’t ‘roll the words’.”
Art has no “finished time”. The pronunciation of libretto, the rhythm processing of piano accompaniment, and the intonation of the orchestra… It took half a year to polish. The closer the performance was, the more Xu Zhong strictly controlled every small detail, and joined hands with the whole team to work hard towards the goal of “a high-quality shot”.
Powerful alliances revitalize the national opera market
“La Boheme” premiered within half a month, and another Puccini classic was launched. Can the market absorb such a rhythm? “The popularity of “La Boheme” has given us great confidence.” Huang Jingyu, deputy director of the Shanghai Opera House, told reporters that even during the epidemic last year, the ticket sales rate of “Tosca” was as high as 91%, which shows that Shanghai audience’s thirst for classic masterpieces. At the same time, more young actors from Shanghai Opera House, such as Xu Xiaoying, Han Peng, Yu Yang, etc., also took part in the main roles in the play, and competed with domestic and foreign celebrities on the same stage, which played a significant role in tempering the young and middle-aged talents of the theater. .
The perception that the Shanghai market is fully recovering ahead of the rest of the country is the same. “In the past, I have never had the experience of performing two classics in a row in a month!” Just after participating in “La Bohème”, opera singer Zhang Yang of the National Center for the Performing Arts “seamlessly joined the group” to rehearse “Tosca”. Looking at the timetable, he bluntly said that this year is busier than 2019. “Opera is a live art, and no matter how much training you have, you have to see the truth on stage.” He is full of expectations to be tested by Shanghai audiences who understand opera at the beginning of his return to the stage.
The reason why the Shanghai Opera House can intensively launch major projects in Malaysia also benefits from the innovative exploration of the Shanghai Opera House’s creative model. This is the first time in China that the three major theaters have jointly produced. During these days in Shanghai, Chen Long, the stage supervisor of the National Center for the Performing Arts, has fully felt the professionalism of the Shanghai Opera House. He sincerely hopes that such a multi-local cooperation model can become the new normal in the opera industry.
During the interview, practitioners in Beijing and Shanghai all mentioned the win-win situation that “joint production” may bring: from the production point of view, it will dilute the investment while gathering the top resources; Greatly increase the number of performances of classic repertoires and open up the elegant art market; from the perspective of artistic exchanges, compared with the famous actors and actresses who have already flowed in major domestic works, the multi-regional cooperation between the orchestra and the chorus will also make the exchange of ideas go deeper level.
Author: Huang Qizhe
Editor: Fan Jing
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.Return to Sohu to see more
Editor:
Disclaimer: The opinions of this article represent only the author himself. Sohu is an information release platform, and Sohu only provides information storage space services.