Lv Opera has few but flexible tunes, an easily-understood libretto, and simple, fluent and wonderful arias, which are conversational. Moreover, it is deeply supported by the great masses. Most of traditional operas of Lv Opera are based on folklore, reflecting the common daily life of poor people, the content of which expresses family ethics, local customs and practices, love and marriage, and sweet love. Through the great efforts of artists in all ages, most of them possess stories with particular and vivid plots, abundant popular words, and a simple and natural performance, which are closer to life without a strict formula. Lv Opera uses the local accents of Shandong Province to express the life of folk, folk-custom and the conditions of the people. It is full of people’s feeling and the breath of life, and is popular with the great masses.
In 1953, the recomposed performance of Li Ersao’s Remarriage by Shandong Lv Opera Troupe won great success, which made the Lv Opera of Shandong Province become prestigious nationwide. This event has become a milestone in Lv Opera’s history of development. Many new excellent operas such as She Marries Her Sister's Fiance, the traditional opera Wang Dingbao Jiedang and the Bright Future, were awarded with opera play prize, actor’s prize and music prize respectively. Li Ersao’s Remarriage and other operas have been sent to Beijing for performance, and the opera troupe was received warm heartedly by leaders of the Central Party Committee and the whole nation. Around 1957, many operas including Li Ersao’s Remarriage, Trouble in the Filed, She Marries Her Sister's Fiance, Wang Hanxi Borrowing Money in the New Year, and the Forced Marriage, etc. were made into art films one after another and showed in and out of China. During this period, Lang Xianfen, an actress becoming famous after 1950s, has created many successful artistic images in the field of modern Lv Opera. Li Ersao in Li Ersao’s Remarriage and Zhao Wushen in After the Harvest acted by her once impressed the public deeply. She, with a pure and honest singing voice and plain performance, was very popular with her spectators. The famous contemporary actresses also include Lin Jianhua and Wang Junying, etc..
Over 50 years, through the hard work of innumerable artists from each large Lv Opera Troupe in the whole province, Lv Opera has achieved unprecedented development. Artistic schools and all theatres and troupes have cultivated a large number of excellent talents, and unearthed and modified many excellent plays. Moreover, designs of aria, bands, stage art, acoustics and lighting have gradually been reformed. All of this gives Lu Opera a complete new look. Excellent plays have been performed one after another in Beijing many times, which were thought highly of by many national leaders, and found a place for our theatre arts. Lv Opera has now developed into a famous local opera nationwide.
Nowadays, the Lv Opera has made outstanding achievements in exploring the modern drama in which the most representative one is the Improving Heaven, a modern drama. As an important modern drama for Shandong Lv Opera Troupe this year, the Improving Heaven reproduces a moving story of 8,000 female soldiers of Shandong Province who went to Xin Jiang Autonomous Region for cultivating wasteland. It is named as the Improving Heaven because the female soldiers of Shandong Province were compared to the “Nwa of the new era” (hence Nwa is a goddess in Chinese mythology who amends the heaven with stones), so as to praise their spirit of dedication. This opera, together with Li Ersao’s Remarriage, shows the charm of the old and new Lv Opera.
Editor: MetalAllen
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