On May 28th, the classic play “The Legend of the White Snake” of Wu Opera by Chen Meilan’s new play creation team of Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute was performed in Hangzhou.
That night, an hour before leaving the venue, the audience began to queue up. The Wu Opera “The Legend of the White Snake” makes the Hangzhou Theatre, which has been silent for more than five months, once again restore its former liveliness. This is also the most popular performance in Hangzhou Theatre in the past three years.
Zhejiang Wu’s performance in Hangzhou this time is to participate in the 2021 Zhejiang traditional opera performance season and the exhibition of Zhejiang classic repertoire hosted by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism. Because of the epidemic, the whole performance season has been postponed from last year to now.
Although Wu Opera “The Legend of the White Snake” became famous very early, and the unique skills such as snake-like snake step are also unique to Wu Opera, there were not so many action designs in the early version and the shapes were not as rich as they are now. By the 1980s, the master of Wu Opera Troupe had greatly revised The Legend of White Snake, and made some treatments that seemed very avant-garde at that time in terms of clothing, music, beauty and performance, which made the drama a hit again and made Chen Meilan and other famous Wu Opera artists.
Now it’s the generation of Yang Xiayun and Lou Sheng, and they have taken over the baton of The Legend of the White Snake from their teacher Chen Meilan, which once again makes the fire of Wu Opera burn more and more brightly.
In 2015, Yang Xiayun won the 27th Plum Blossom Award with Xiaoqing of The Legend of the White Snake. In 2021, Lou Sheng also won the first prize of the 30th Plum Blossom Award with Xu Xian of The Legend of the White Snake.
“The classics in the classics represent the highest artistic level of contemporary China opera.” “I have been watching the Wu opera” The Legend of the White Snake “since the 1980s, and I have watched it at least six or seven times. This drama has been refined, revised and adjusted continuously, and it is more and more exciting every time. I have the opportunity to think of Jinhua in the future. ” The audience did not hesitate to praise it, and some even proposed to Hangzhou Theatre to add a show, hoping to take friends to watch it again.
Tong Yingjun, a former media person and now a member of the Party Group of the Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles and secretary of the Secretariat, wrote in a circle of friends: “How long has it been since calling friends went to the theatre? I’ve done a lot of shouting work, and it’s the first time to watch Wu Opera completely. The plot is compact, the martial arts are extraordinary, and the emotional expression is full. A small look in Xia Yun’s eyes and Lou Sheng’s eyes makes people happy. Everyone is a corner on the stage, and every movement is clean and not sloppy. A dragon composed of more than ten people, its tail is amazing. After the performance, I followed the enthusiastic audience friends to chase a star. “
Watch a drama exhibition in a big province, enjoy a cultural feast and go to a traditional cultural appointment. At present, the performance market is gradually restoring the fireworks of the past. As Zhang Mei, secretary of the Party branch and executive deputy general manager of Hangzhou Theatre, said, “The night in early summer should be like this, watching a play in the warm evening breeze. For the theater people, it is really a memorable day to have such an attendance rate in the case of normalization of epidemic prevention and control. I hope the next day.Son, performances can be so smooth! “