Text/Jinyang.com reporter Song Yi, correspondent Li Danhong
Photo/He Zhijian
“The people who go to Fenglou are not good at leaving, and the rich people are lonely to cover the setting sun.” Chen Baoying, the female protagonist of the Guangdong opera “Zifenglou Komiks”, sings and words are as straight as weeping and complaining, and the audience applauses thunderously. On the evening of September 8, nearly a thousand audiences were crowded with people in the Cantonese Opera Cultural Plaza in Guangzhou Cultural Park. Everyone was deeply attracted by the teacher-student concert of Li Yueling, a Cantonese opera singer, held here. The master of Zishu, Teacher Tan Peiyi, also visited the audience in person. Li Yueling and his disciples hope to use their voices to promote the Cantonese opera culture and carry forward the Lingnan culture.
For this performance, Li Yueling and her disciples prepared for half a year. Behind this performance is the cultural confidence and totem of Guangdong rhyme flowing in the blood of a Cantonese singer. This performance is the spiritual agreement between a Cantonese music singer and a group of ignorant college students who know nothing about Cantonese music. What kind of story is behind this performance? Li Yueling retreated and continued to continue her dream of inheriting the Cantonese rhyme?
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Seeking dreams, and the origin of CUHK
In 2009, Guangdong musical song singer Li Yueling retired from the Guangdong Music and Music Art Troupe. That year, the Cantonese Opera and Guangdong Opera Cultural Studio of the Center for Historical Anthropology Research at China University was established.
The following year, the studio opened a Cantonese Opera Cantonese Opera workshop for students in the school. Li Yueling and famous performer Chen Zhongyan served as instructors, aiming to cultivate young students’ interest in Cantonese Opera and Cantonese Opera and improve their perceptual understanding of Cantonese Culture. The workshop hopes that more young people can join the ranks of understanding Cantonese Opera and Cantonese Opera and Chinese traditional culture.
As soon as the workshop started, it quickly attracted a large group of young people with similar aspirations from major universities. Unlike Cantonese opera majors, almost all of these college students have noI have been exposed to Guangdong Komiks songs, but I have never seen the tuning score, let alone pronunciation and rhyme. From voice lifting to music theory, from demonstration to teaching one by one, the two teachers led this group of students to learn from scratch.
The workshop also attracted the attention and support of many famous Cantonese opera artists and enthusiasts. On April 17, 2011, the female teacher of Cantonese opera master Hong Line came to the teaching site in thunderstorm to communicate with the students in the workshop. The female teacher of Red Line not only listened to the students’ famous sings such as “The Feast of the Phoenix Pavilion” and “The Fallen Fellowship in Flower Field”, but also gave suggestions on improving their lyrics, singing style, and emotions. She also sang “CinemaRed Candle Tears” on the spot and put forward high expectations.
The 7th (Guangzhou) College Students’ Drama Festival has opened a special session on Cantonese opera, inviting workshops and Cantonese opera enthusiasts from brother colleges and universities such as Guangzhou University Quyi Club to perform together. This is also the only Cantonese opera special event held by the College Students’ Drama Festival so far. This group of students used their superb performances to repay the concern of all sectors of society and sang the dream of spreading and inheritance with Cantonese rhyme.
Continue your dreams, continue your teacher’s life after school. Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, students graduate and move towards society and get on their jobs. Unlike students from Cantonese opera or art majors, students in the seminar have left the original learning platform after graduation and have almost no chance to learn Cantonese opera. With the busy work, they slowly put their Cantonese Opera aside, and they had not sang a song for several months or even a year.
“It is said that ‘The fist is always inseparable from the hand and the mouth’. If this continues, the students will definitely forget what they have learned before.” Every time Li Yueling chats with students, she feels moved. She often thought: “How can students always maintain their love for Cantonese opera, persist in learning, and even go to the next level?”BabaylanAfter thinking about it, Li Yueling decided to use the resources around her to build a platform for the students and create for them.Opportunity to continue learning Cantonese opera.
She and Chen Zhongyan first found a few private parties and let the students go to the start practice from time to time. Later, Li Yueling wanted to ensure that the students could start the game once a month and achieve the goal of practicing all the time. She went to Beijing Street Cultural Station to find Webmaster Zhao Yuhua and talked to Webmaster Zhao that she was deeply worried about the loss of skills of this group of Komiks students. When the webmaster Zhao Yuhua heard that there were such a group of young people who loved Guangdong opera, he was very moved. He immediately arranged for Li Yueling to meet with Chen Jinglin, the head of the Folk Art Troupe of the Guangzhou Cultural Hall of Beijing Street to discuss the students’ practice music.
In order to facilitate everyone to practice music, the Cultural Association has changed the starting time from Monday to Friday, and the work and rest system is closed on weekends. It is specially arranged to bring the accompaniment master back to work overtime on Saturday afternoon to start the game for the students. After Li Yueling implemented the venue for the opening of each month, she assigned the task of each student to learn a song, hoping to use pressure to drive students to take the time to learn the song. Every time the student starts, no matter how busy Li Yueling will come to the scene, listen carefully to each student’s singing, and after listening to them, she will help them analyze and improve word by word.
In addition, Li YuelingCinema also invited her master “Zihu Wang” Teacher Tan Peiyi to participate in the students’ private affairs. Teacher Tan Peiyi not only shared the creation process of his famous song “Cai Wenji Return to Han” with the students, but also taught everyone to sing “Jinjiang Poetry Couple” word by word, which gave the students great encouragement.
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They became the messengers of Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera communication
In addition to teaching students to sing, Li Yueling also paid great attention to tapping students’ potential. For students with artistic talent, she will encourage them to learn Cantonese music accompaniment instruments and playing the palm board. She hopes that after they have finished learning, they can form their own accompaniment band, which can integrate singing and accompaniment; for students with writing skills, she willEncourage them to write lyrics. Under her earnest teaching, many students have made breakthroughs, stepped onto different art stages and gained recognition.
Li Yueling often said to her classmates: “I taught you to sing Cantonese opera and turn you into die-hard fans of Cantonese opera, but in terms of inheritance and communication, I hope you can one day take the initiative to shoulder the important task of spreading Cantonese opera culture. Let more people know Cantonese opera and like Cantonese opera.”
Li Yueling’s Cantonese students back then, now some of them have stepped onto the podium and become teachers. They will use Cantonese opera as class material in a timely manner based on the content of their class, so that the children can accept Cantonese opera subtly. Some people joined the bank and added the Cantonese opera special session in the bank’s feedback activities. This gave many customers who never entered the theater to come into contact with Cantonese opera for the first time and became enthusiasts… Under the words and deeds of Teacher Li Yueling, the students consciously regarded the spread of Cantonese opera as their obligation. They did not have any great deeds, but they used ordinary practical actions to sow the seeds of Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera into the hearts of more people.
Realize your dreams, they become the messengers of love
Li Yueling often says: “We have received strong support from many groups along the way and the help of enthusiastic people. We must learn to be grateful. In addition to learning Guangdong opera, in addition to being able to entertain yourself, I hope you can bring more people happiness with what you have learned.”
In recent years, Li Yueling has led students Wu Guanxian and Li Yingtong to participate in the “Belt and Road” charity exhibition on the inheritance of Guangdong folk art. Chen BabaylanZhongyan and Li Yueling personally led the students to more than a dozen nursing homes in Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen and other places for condolence performances. In addition, they also gave nearly 20 scenes for free to Foshan, Dongguan, Taishan and other places, allowing Cantonese opera to enter people’s daily lives, allowing people to feel the charm of traditional culture, and enrich the cultural life of local residents. Li Yueling is a music artist who regards the inheritance and communication of Cantonese opera as his responsibility. Li Yueling’s disciples are the batters who make the Guangdong rhyme reverberate in the new era.