Although he has created many classic film and television music, composer Sambo 's favorite place is the stage. Since the strong response caused by the performance of "金沙" in 2005, Sanbao has focused his career on musicals and has successively created "Butterfly", "Sanmao's Wandering Story", "Steel's Piano", "Wang Er's Long March" and "" A series of musicals such as Nie Xiaoqian and Ning Caichen ", "Stoking in Humen", "Flying Sky" and so on. In 2022, Sanbao will assemble selected pieces from nine musicals he created into a concert, which will be staged on the stage of Beijing Tianqiao Art Center on July 27th and 28th. In his view, this concert, titled "The End of the World", a selection of Sambo musical repertoire, is a stage summary of his musical creation.
html On June 30, Sanbao, who had not been seen for a long time, appeared at the interview site. He still had long hair and a chic and unruly appearance, but his long hair was tied behind his head and was already graying. Nearly twenty years have passed since 2005, and Sambo is still on the musical stage. He stayed away from music in film and television dramas and plunged into the time-consuming and relatively "niche" musical theater industry. Sanbao said that this was entirely due to his love. Facing a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily , he also spoke frankly about the problems existing in his beloved musical industry.The curtain is about to begin
html Nearly 30 tracks will be released in 12 hours"I can write music for dozens of film and television dramas a year, and the music played all over the street is my music. Why did I suddenly stop writing and switch to writing music? Play? Because I like it, it’s that simple. In my concept, I can only do one thing and do it well. Since I choose to do stage plays, I won’t do anything else.” Composer Sambo confessed his original intention of doing musicals.
is well-known to the public for his film music such as "My Father and Mother" and "See You or Be Parted", and is popular for his songs such as "Secret Fragrance ", "I Don't Want to Be Loved Again", " I Only Have Eyes for You " Popular among many singers, Sanbao has been walking between pop music and classical music .
Over the years, Sambo has accumulated a large number of popular musical repertoires. It has always been Sambo's dream to hold a concert of his own musical repertoire. This concert can take place thanks to the performance of the 2021 musical "Flying" theme concert. "The performance was very good at that time. I was thinking that it would be quite interesting to put together a concert with some of my favorite arias from my previous musicals."
Wife Wan Qianhui 's encouragement and The support made Sanbao firm up his ideas. For this concert, Sanbao prepared "One Day", "Why Did I Fall in Love with You", "Greed", "At That Time", "Beyond the Horizon", "Sea Water", "Remaining Warmth", "Heart", "I Believe So I Persevere", etc. Nearly 30 tracks are shared with you. The entire concert was limited to less than two hours, and it took a lot of effort to select the final pieces among the many pieces. "The concert should take into account various forms such as chorus, duet, male and female duets, solo singing, etc. The concert should have good melody so that people who have never seen a musical can be moved." As a concert producer, Wan Qianhui provided suggestions for Sanbao. Got a lot of suggestions.
guest lineup
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Sanbao strives for excellence in every detail. At the concert, Sanbao will personally conduct the conductor, combining a double-pipe symphony orchestra, an electroacoustic band, a folk band and a choir. "The scale of this concert is unprecedented. There are nearly 190 people on the stage, plus 100 staff members, and the entire group is nearly 300 people. Presenting a concert regardless of cost is also a summary of my previous stage."
For this concert, Sanbao invited the actors who premiered the musical that year as guest singers. Sha Baoliang, who played the leading role in "Golden Sands" and "Butterfly", has appeared in four of Sanbao's musicals and performed in "Flying" music Liu Yan, who sang at the concert, and actors such as Ayunga, who also sang at the "Flying" concert, will all perform on the same stage. Sanbao is looking forward to the actors' performances, "After so many years, the actors have gained new experience, and it will be very different."
In the Chinese original musical industry, there are countless actors and staff in front of and behind the scenes who have come from the works of the golden pair of "Sambo and Guanshan" and have stepped onto a larger and broader stage. Tan Weiwei , Liu Yan and other actors became famous after starring in Sambo's musical. Only Sha Baoliang became famous for singing "Secret Fragrance" composed by Sanbao when he starred in "Golden Sands". Talking about the collaboration with Sha Baoliang in "Golden Sands", San Bao laughed and said that it was a complete "accident". "Sha Baoliang has a good memory for music. After I wrote "Golden Sands", I asked him to record a demo for me. He couldn't read music, but I sang it to him twice and he knew how to do it. It took me an entire afternoon. I have recorded the arias for the role of 'Sha' and let those who actually act in this drama learn it." What Sanbao didn't expect was that the originally scheduled male lead completely lost his voice after practicing for an afternoon. The performance was about to begin in a week, and when the time came, I had no choice but to ask Sha Baoliang to come to the rescue, because he was the only one who could sing. The whole play lasted more than two hours, including singing, acting, dancing, and stage management. So much content needed to be completed within a week. Sha Baoliang completed the impossible task. Everyone was sweating during the premiere. Sha Baoliang was wearing earphones. The director directed Sha Baoliang through the earphones, "Go forward from the entrance to the stage and take four steps. Do you see the light in front of you? Stop! Just sing here. . "The whole premiere was arranged in this way, and the performance and the stage were so smooth that no one in the audience noticed it.
Thoughts
Chinese musicals still have a long way to go
Although the actors he has worked with have already become stars, in Sanbao's view, he does not invite celebrities to star in his musicals. Regarding this, Sambo said bluntly, "I don't use stars to reflect the quality of my dramas."
In Sanbao's view, another very important reason for not hiring celebrities is that they "can't afford to hire them." "The cost of stars is too high. There are only so many seats for a performance, and the box office can be counted. If the stars take it all, the industry cannot operate normally. And musicals are commodities with artistic attributes and must be We have to consider the issue of making money. "In order to ensure the quality of each play, actors will be re-interviewed for each of Sanbao's plays. "Even those who have acted in my plays before, or even played the male or female lead, will have to audition for new plays." Sambo has been in the musical industry for many years, and Sambo is outspoken about issues in the industry. He believes that the development of domestic musicals has a history of less than 30 years, and the institutions and schools with musical theater majors only started in the 1990s. The training of musical actors is far from enough, not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quantity. Also includes quality. "To put it bluntly, in my opinion, 90% of people can't get on stage. It stands to reason that a musical performance includes three elements: singing, acting and dancing. Musical actors can sing better than ordinary singers. The performance is better than that of ordinary actors, and the dancing is better than that of ordinary dancers. The combination of these three factors makes an excellent musical actor. This is my standard when it comes to musical actors abroad. , everyone admires him, he is a real artist. But here it is just the opposite, he is not good at all three, but he can still do a little bit of all three, let’s perform a musical.” In this case, Sanbao believes that it is a Chinese original. Musicals still have a long way to go.
In the past, people believed that singing was the most important in musicals, but in Sanbao's view, performing in musicals is more important than singing. "I used to think that singing is the most important, but starting from "Butterfly", I think performance comes first. Musicals are dramas first, and they just use music to express them. So the first thing I watch is the performance, and Non-singing. The main actors in "The Piano of Steel" are all from the directing department of the Central Academy of Drama, not the musical theater department. Although their singing is a bit poor, the characters are right there."
Text/Reporter Tian Wanting
Photography/Reporter Cui Jun Coordinator/Man Yi
