Pei Yu’s calligraphy is well known to many people, and we happen to have other similar hobbies besides Peking Opera. She secretly likes to play snooker, and I also like it very much, so a considerable part of my online chats with her every weekend during my undergraduate period were spent discussing billiards. She loved Ireland's Ken Doherty and I admired Scotland's Stephen Hendry. We also like to watch movies and will recommend each other any good movies we see. In addition, we are all attracted to Leslie Cheung's melancholic temperament. I remember when I first met her in 2001, I called her for the first time and she was not there. A classmate in my dormitory told me that she had gone to attend Leslie Cheung’s concert. 2003 was a troubled year, and the SARS epidemic in Beijing was about to come. On April 1, the sad news of Leslie Cheung’s death came. In our own anxious and closed spaces, we comforted each other through mobile phone text messages.
Most Peking Opera actors who have been performing since childhood are cheerful and shrewd due to their long-term exposure to the industry, and Wang Peiyu is no exception, but she rarely has the slick and philistine habits of some actors. Before she became the leader of a group, she was already very decent in dealing with others. After becoming the leader of a group, she had a commanding demeanor when talking. She was very sincere but never said the wrong thing. It did not happen in a day. She is very opinionated. When making a decision, one often listens to the opinions of others, especially laymen, and is able to listen respectfully and then make one's own decision, which is often proven correct afterwards. She is very approachable to others, even with a hint of cunning at times. For example, my mother only had a meal with her, but as soon as I talked about it, she was full of praise for her easy-going and easy-going nature. Another time when we were eating pizza at Pizza Hut, she saw a beggar outside through the glass window, so she asked the waiter to wrap up half a piece in a piece of tinfoil and went out to give it to him, even joking with him. None of this will make others keep Wang Peiyu away from their harmonious opinions. At the same time, she is not cowardly, and is rude to people and things she is dissatisfied with. He is truly a "boss" who is both kind and powerful.
I have known Peiyu for five years and listened to her plays for ten years, so it is worth writing something at this moment. In the past five years, I have been able to go from a "fan" to her close friend, which is also a great blessing in life. Peiyu is diligent in her art, and she is quick and eager to learn. Her future is limitless, and the "Yu Party" is naturally happy and excited. Perhaps it was because of her delicate face, smart clothes, and extraordinary conversation, or perhaps because of the "bookishness" of the Yu School that later generations emphasized and admired. People always like to call her a "scholar-type actor", and some good people even call her a "Confucian actress" No., in fact, this is a misunderstanding of Pei Yu and Yu Sect. In fact, Yu Shuyan's singing is not literate. He is a bit of a celebrity school and a bit of false Taoism. Although Wang Peiyu is calmer and gentler than ordinary actors, she has neither the ancient knowledge of scholars nor the naivety and sourness of so-called scholars. Her open-mindedness and sophistication, her bravery and courage, and even a little bit of Jianghu spirit in her body, how can she be a "Confucian"? "Knowledge of worldly affairs is knowledge, and understanding of human feelings is writing." Peiyu always pursues justice and peace in her acting and acting, and does not deliberately stick to the past. This is the true Yu sect.
There is another article that should be earlier.
Impressions of Wang Peiyu
At almost 11 o'clock on Tuesday night, I called Brother Fish Underwater and said that I wanted to write an article about Wang Peiyu. Let's talk, Brother Fish. Say that's okay. So we started talking about Yu Shuyan, Meng Xiaodong, the back of the head voice, the third-level rhyme, Wang Peiyu's art, and the future of Peking Opera.
The dark dormitory was quiet, except for us chatting in low voices, like the white-headed maids gossiping in front of the palace of immortality. Brother Yu had a cold, and it was a bit difficult to speak. He coughed a few times delicately, and summed up in his usual thin voice: "Ahem, Mei Yuyang's glory days are no longer." I only promised a few words. He said, Brother Yu, you have to take care of your health. Then you can rest, and then hung up the phone. I crawled to the upper bunk in the dark and lay down. I felt that I had no clue at all about the article, but I felt a bit sad and tired from it.
I don’t know why I like Peking Opera. In fact, I like everything that is ethereal and elegant. I like Jiang Kui's lyrics, Yu Shuyan and Meng Xiaodong's Peking Opera, I like Liu Baoquan's drums, the clearness of "cold fragrance flying on the poem", and the indifference of "a bright moon shining under the window". The rest of my life is too late, and I have no chance to see the grace of the masters on the red tapestry. I can only trace the auspicious light of the ancestors from the records passed down from ancient times. When the night falls deeper, I always plug in my headphones and listen to the low and familiar voice of the announcer over the noisy noise: "EMI invited boss Tan Xinpei to sing "Selling Horses."" When the song ends, my impetuous soul feels A little bit of the comfort of being soothed, but of course there is also the loneliness of "love affairs are always blown away by the rain and the wind" and the sadness that I am not immune to the world after all.
Today’s Peking Opera always reveals a commercial vulgarity that cannot be concealed. If there are conditions, you should be charming. If there are no conditions, you should be charming if you create conditions. So I am very grateful to Pihuang and Hongdou for making such a place for us, the old and the young, to piece together the fragmented impressions of that era of peaceful singing and dancing using the fragments of hearsay among each other and the vague sound of the drill record.
Mr. Liu said that Yu School art is like the goldfish in Zhongshan Park, which are very picky about living conditions. What grass to put in, what to feed, when to change the water, and when to shade are all controlled by specialized operators. Shi served attentively. Therefore, it can only be the plaything of literati. Yu and Meng have no worries about food and clothing, so they can work hard and meticulously. How many people are like Yang Baosen who "do not hesitate to follow the road, and have no regrets even after nine deaths"? The decline of Peking Opera is an indisputable fact. I am afraid that it can only be a demanding or extravagant hope for us to allow today's famous actors to completely wash their minds and pursue the legacy of the ancients.
I heard about Wang Peiyu five years ago. A little girl, with a very delicate appearance, sang "Wen Zhaoguan" with eloquent words. I was in junior high school at the time, and I just thought it sounded good. I didn't know about the public case about the so-called "Thirteenth Day" in the future. When I was an ignorant boy who didn't know what the charm of singing was, it was her voice that created the first impression of Yupai in my ears.
Mr. Qi Rushan said that there are six requirements for being a famous actor, but so far I only remember two: appearance and voice. Wang Peiyu's appearance is worthy of the word "show". Rokuro in "Sitting in the Palace" has a slight red color on his eyebrows and eyelids, which contrasts with the golden dragon and red python, exuding a graceful and quiet temperament. Liu Shichang in "The Story of the Black Pot" is a ghost who cannot put on rouge and has a black net covering her head. Many people look pale and pale, but she has a simple and elegant charm amidst the sadness. This is probably called "The Patriarch is rewarded with food".
Wang Peiyu’s voice is very good, clear and clear, except for the slight female voice that is unavoidable for female students, and is somewhat similar to Mr. Yu in his prime. Her clothes are very good. Whenever my roommates and I listen to the word "ji" in the sentence "I do my own errands" in her song "Catch and Let Go", we can't help but praise it. She has a good sense of music. Once when I went to the Liyuan Bookstore, the boss played me a copy of her "Exchanging Sons in the Execution Field". I felt that not only did she have a bright and powerful voice, but she also handled the cadences very well. It is very rare for a little girl to be able to do this, and the four-character comment "ice and snow smart" given to her in the forum is definitely not an unfair reward. Her singing style is also very regular. Today's people always like to change the tune of the word "de" when singing "At this time I have to bear it in my heart", but she always sings it according to Yu Shuyan's original song. Nowadays, when singing "Let the tiger return to the mountain and catch the people again", she is used to pausing at the end. The huqin plays first, and then slowly introduces the last drawl, while she sings it all in one breath every time.
Nowadays, when Xiangxing sings the first line of the adagio, she lowers the scale and would rather break the tune than fill the whole room. However, she always treats every tune with the spirit of a vegetable, appearing clumsy. Gotta be cute. In this era when the elegant art of Peking Opera is inevitably tainted with the atmosphere of vulgarity and glitz, having such an actor who is generous, concise and unique without being too fancy is enough to make me, an old-school opera fan who follows the old-fashioned way and constantly misses the charm of the past, very happy. .
I'm afraid all rational alternatives are unacceptable. The soil on which Peking Opera relies for its survival is withering day by day, and people are no longer willing to find a place to release their souls among silk and bamboo. Facing the remnants of the Peking Opera dance hall, I couldn't calmly accept this fact. It is said that after Lao Tan died, people called Tingyu Shuyan "Tuntu Pi". It probably means that when there is no tobacco to smoke, I have to chew the soil to satisfy my cravings. Times have changed, and the Yu family has become a model for a generation that has never been seen before or since. As Mr. Chen Yunjun said, this art was also at its most splendid, together with its parent Peking Opera - or as Hongdou puts it: "Old Peking Opera" - -together towards the end of life. The grand scene of "people all over the city talking about calling Tian'er" has passed by like a passing cloud. On a calm and breezy afternoon, when we were alone indulging in the afterglow of eighteen and a half pictures, we could only helplessly endure the sadness and burst into tears. The sky is desolate. I think this is probably why I admire Wang Peiyu so much. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, I went to Chang'an to watch a concert of famous Peking Opera pieces. The opening was Wang Peiyu's "Drumming and Scolding Cao", and she ended the show in less than ten minutes. I said to a girl next to me: "Half of my ticket money is gone." She smiled at me. In fact, I know that Wang Peiyu is a mortal after all. Some people have such and such opinions about her, and one can also find such and such failures in her recordings, but I still prefer to appreciate her as always. Because from her voice, I can always enjoy the pleasure of "swallowing earth and skin" for a moment, see the slight hope of returning to the light in the gloom, and find the spirit in this era that lacks simplicity, perfection, and everything that is elegant and straightforward. sustenance. Perhaps many years later, I was finally unable to escape the restraints of the secular world, and Peking Opera finally became the aura of Lu Dian on the dance pavilion and singing stage. Looking back, I realized that Wang Peiyu, Yu Shuyan, and even Peking Opera were just my way to escape the hustle and bustle and express my feelings in elegance. The misty dreams of the days. But even so, it will always be a brilliant passage in my life.
Written in a humble room in Beijing on the afternoon of November 7, 2000, despite the cold
Thanks to the original author for sharing.
The picture comes from Teacher Wang Peiyu’s official fan group (Falling in Love with Yu’s Sound Dubbing Picture) on December 26, 2021.