Preface I

Yu Feng (President of CNOH, The Famous Conductor)

I felt very pleased when Mr. Ma Lianqing invited me to write the preface for this book. Mr. Ma Lianqing is an excellent art talent as well as a national top-level stage art designer in China National Opera House. This book will be acclaimed as a great scholar achievement with its publication, for it gathers together in all these years Mr. Ma’s brilliant artistic creations which also bear witness to the development of China National Opera House. As one of his co-workers, partners and peers, I share the similar artistic ideals with him. And maybe this explains why every drawing and picture in his book generates in me a sensation of familiarity and warmness. How dazzlingly marvelous they are!

Owing to his outstanding achievements in artistic creation, Ma was promoted in 2009 and has worked as the chief stage art designer in China National Opera House for years. In the large environmental concert “Green Imagination” held in the Great Hall of the People in 2009, Ma successfully applied the the high-tech projection design techniques to the stage art, combined with the slanted stage design in a creative way.Thus, the performing spaces for symphony orchestra and the chorus are appropriately arranged. The concert focusing on the development of environmental protection is perfectly presented through the creative dramatic expression. It took only over 20 days to finish all the phases from designing, setting to performing. The same idea was later applied to the 2010 National Day Concert which successfully performed in Bird’s Nest Stadium.

Ma appeared to be talented, creative and energetic in participating the 180 million budget project, a live-action dance drama “The Road of Revival.” He was immersed in it day and night, creating and designing for more than 3 months. Though the project was delayed in the last moment before performing, his creative accumulations in the opera house have proved its worth at a later time. The opera “Turandot” performed in National Stadium and the John Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” in Beijing Worker’s Stadium which attracted thousands of audiences on the opera public open day were two successful performances. Ma’s innovative works expanded the possibility of the stage art design and also proved the fact that operas were not indoor-theatre-exclusive,but also can be enjoyed in outdoor space. The 360 panoramic turntable and the huge mechanical lifting device are masterly combined to create the 3D stage effect. The performing space of the conductor, the band, the chorus and the performers together with the sound&light effects were reconstructed which helped the complex dramatic expression. The two operas have made great hits in Beijing and re-built the performer audience relationship owing to Ma’s challenging and creative spirit.

Another production I’d like to mention here is the original Chinese opera “The Dream of the Mountains” which performed in the Exhibition Show of the Excellent Works sponsored by China’s Ministry of Culture. The varied narrative structures should be presented in a basic setting without too many changes, which poses a great challenge to the stage art designer. Ma did a wonderful job with deep understanding of the hypothesis of the drama. From the gruesome and grotesque wooded mountain at the very beginning to the eerie warm house of the Character Geek, from the monsters covered deep forest to the distant snow mountain and in the end the flowers-in-fullbloom mountain—all of the dramatic scenes were presented in a layered sense. The production was awarded on the exhibition show and its stage art was well-received and spoken highly of by the judges.

In 2010, China National Opera House staged the classic western opera “Tannhäuser,”which was crowned as the aircraft carrier in opera history and marked the opera house’s premiere of the German composer Wagner’s work. The show proved to be a fantastic hit which won audiences’ hearts from home and abroad. I marked the end of“Western Production of Wagner’s works Only” history and removed the suspicion of Chinese production of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.” The opera dominated the list of 2010 Ministry of Culture winners and practically won 13 awards of the First Chinese Opera Festival in 2011, among which Ma’s stage art prize plays a leading role.

The China National Opera House’s premiere of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” was unprecedented. So here aroused the question: How can we keep the original flavor of Wagner’s work with modest creativity? The course of re-creation is never smooth.Absurd exaggeration or out-of-the-box creativity should be avoided during adaptation.Instead, we needed to get down to the fundamental to understand the essence of the opera, of the musical theater. It’s not a simple or super ficial mixture of flashy music and flamboyant performance. The essence of Wagner’s ideas should be profoundly translated including the spirit of the libretto, the music, the cultural and religious backgrounds and the correlation among them. Wagner epitomized the artistic ideas of the 19th century and his works have ever represented the pinnacle of the opera art.Therefore the producer and the designer could not just approach the work as it stood.Every scene and detail should be designed and presented in meaningful senses. With deep understanding of the essence of Wagner’s work, the dramatic expression of the transition from the sensual heaven—Vaenersborg where Tannhäuser was addicted to the human earth within only 28 seconds would be no more a difficulty. As a stage art designer, however, to comprehensively handle the presentation of scenes, plots,performers, emotion and music was still a big challenge. Again, Ma did a bravo job.The brilliant performance of the Tannhäuser’s China premiere spoke for his excellent design concepts.

“Hong Band Tailor,” an original Chinese opera, was another significant production which contained Ma’s sophisticated designs. The precise design of the stage imagery embodied the talent of the designer. One of the flashlights was the presentation of the old photos, which was so unique and fluent that it lingered in audiences’ memories.

In October of 2012, the year of the 60 anniversary of our China National Opera House, we were invited by Roman Art Foundation, Italy to premiere “Turandot”at the Auditorium Conciliazio, which was a challengeable honor. Despite the disadvantageous condition that the original indoor theater was re-built and functioned mainly as a music hall, Mr. Ma masterly re-constructed the space and presented the three acts of “Turandot” in a precise, integrative and comprehensive manner so that even the most picky Italian audiences gave the thumbs-up. The success of“Turandot” also ensured the cooperation between our opera house and the Roman Art Foundation in the next three years.

A succession of varied versions of “Turandot” shows designed by Ma Lianqing have been performed at some famous theaters around the world including the oversea theaters like Egyptian Opera House, Syrian National Arts Center and the Italian Auditorium Conciliazione and the domestic theaters like Zhuhai Stadium, Tianjing Grand Theatre, Ningbo Grand Theatre, Shenzhen Grand Theatre and Qingdao Grand Theatre.

Finally, I would like to talk about the spectacular full of Ma’s talent—China’s first rendition of Wagner’s epic “Die Walküre.” The show was extremely historic for its completely independent all-Chinese production and cast, a milestone of the internationalization of the opera house which was since then regarded as the greatest strength in Asia’s theaters. Ma proved his talent and sophistication in this opera which lasted as long as four and a half hours. Owing to the grand and visually intriguing stage design, the performance went through in a manner of perfectness with great dramatic tension. The legendary began in a sensation of mystery, with the moonlit forest haunted by divine music where Hunding lived surrounded by ancient locust trees among which the Nothung sword was shimmered by flame—the poetic divinity was perfectly revealed to devoted viewers. In the following two acts, being set off by gigantic rocks, the divine Valhalla appeared to be super towering spectacular. In the ending episode, the dramatic climax reached when the stage seemed to be enveloped by soaring fire. Ma translated the romantic masterpiece of Norse Mythology with intelligence, bringing a visual feast to the audiences. “Die Walküre” staged by China National Opera House closed 2013 NCPA Opera Festival successfully and was metaphorically acclaimed as the “Chang’e-3 lunar probe” in Chinese literary and art circles and inaugurated a new opera era in China. Mr. Ma Lianqing and other casts of CNOH have made the history of Ring operas of China.

China National Opera House boasts an excellent creative group which consists of talented artists like Mr. Ma. They devote to art career, strive for artistic idealism, and more importantly they help each other and make progress together. Mr. Ma Lianqing,together with other respectable directors, conductors, assistants and producers in opera house, have created numerous classical works which witness the development of CNOH.

To be honest, as the president, the art director of CNOH, I sometimes feel sorry that artists like Ma can not be provided with more time and space for creation due to financial difficulties and limited conditions. Fortunately, however, talented artists and designers are free from the restrictions and inspired to make more wonders. I experienced the same when conducting performances. Ma’s creative works have won him enormous critical acclaims and qualified to be permanently preserved as the treasures of China National Opera House.

These are all about Mr. Ma Lianqing, Master Ma in my mind.