As the closing performance of the 2020 Tongji University Red Art Education Season on the evening of December 23, the original national experimental opera "LIU Zhidan" was played for the first time in the 129 Auditorium, Siping Campus. The production took almost three years, and was created jointly by many parties, as a gift for the centennial of the founding of the Party. The Shanghai Opera House Former Dean HE Zhaohua, Shanghai Office of Corrective Action Former Director MU Wenhua, Shanghai Opera House Singer ZHANG Jianlu, Zhidan County Art Center Director YANG Mingrui, the Tongji University Party Committee Deputy Secretary Xu Jianping, the Publicity Department, Youth League Committee, and the College of Arts and Media leaders, teachers, and students attended the performance together.
Original National Experimental Opera "LIU Zhidan"
The opera play adopts the creative form that combines national and traditional opera, and it features LIU Zhidan, the people's hero, as the main character. Through the seven-act opera scenes of Deep Mountain Fire, City Gate Distress, Family Feelings Like Water, Gathering in Nanliang, Courageous Loyalty, Truthful Feelings, and Heroic One Thousand Autumn, a grand overture and epilogue shows LIU Zhidan, one of the founders of the northern Shaanxi base area, insisted on returning to northern Shaanxi to fight during the low tide of the revolution. When establishing the base area, he was dedicated to the people and reserved the most important base area for the Central Red Army's Long March. He had no complaints when he was tested by the Party. In the end, he finally led his division in its march to the east; a story of a true revolutionary hero with his loyalty to the Party.
As a key demonstration course project of Shanghai-level ideological and political education and teaching reform, the play, under the guidance of the Party Committee Publicity Department of our University and the Party Committee of the College of Arts and Media, invited the national first-level poetry writer HE Zhaohua, famous screenwriter LI Haiding, national first-level Composer DU Ming, national first-level director FANG Honglin, and other famous artists to work with the more than 60 teachers and students from Department of Music and Performance, College of Arts and Media, and other schools and colleges. The play was staged at the Jiading and Siping Campuses in the form of a concert at the end of 2019, receiving rave reviews and enthusiastic reactions.
The Art Director and College of Arts and Media Professor LI Wei, introduced the play by stating: "The whole play condenses and intercepts the second half of LIU Zhidan's life; that is, from the Weihua Uprising failure to his death during his Eastern Expedition. It describes how LIU Zhidan and other Communists created a revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi."
As the curtain fell, the audience responded with warm applause, saying that LIU Zhidan's deeds moved people, the performance moved people's hearts, people felt fully that the Communist Party members’beliefs were higher than the sky and deeper than the sea, and Zhidan's everlasting spirit is inspirational for encouraging everyone to work hard and contribute to the socialist modernization drive.
After the performance, Executive Director of the play and College of Arts and Media Performance Teacher WEI Liang said: "I am very lucky to be Executive Director of the Opera LIU Zhidan. From the beginning of its creation to the stage of the prototype version on December 23, it took nearly three years to complete. In the past year, I have been renewed time and time again. I believe the artistic power of the LIU Zhidan will become even stronger in the future".
Group photo of cast and crew
The opera performance creators stated that, as a course ideological and political practice platform actively created by the College of Arts and Media, the LIU Zhidan rehearsal integrates fully the resources of various professional courses and completes the integration of classroom teaching and on-stage performance. At the same time, by dealving deeply into the spirit of Zhidan, the play guides students to understand the background of the times, learn the glorious deeds from the Party history and revolutionary ancestors, cultivate the patriotism of teachers and students, carry forward the national culture, and inherit the “red spirit".
Photo: ZHOU You,
YIN Feng
Source: https://news.tongji.edu.cn/info/1002/76226.htm
