The bell crosses the zero o'clock mark, ushering in a new year. People like to celebrate this moment with various cultural activities to look back on the past year and look forward to the new year.
In Shanghai, the cultural and artistic activities at the end of the year and the beginning of the year are particularly rich because of this.
As early as last Friday, the new version of the immersive Broadway musical "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" (hereinafter referred to as "The Great Comet") had already started previewing at the Grand Theater of the Nine Trees Future Art Center . (Previous report: Click here to read)
The lights turned on, and the star ring stage of fireworks lit up the palace ball of 1812. The curtain slowly opened, and the unique immersive stage made people's eyes shine. The initial idea for "The Great Comet" came from a tavern where writer and songwriter Dave was inspired when he was collecting music in Russia. Therefore, whether it is the Off-Broadway version or the later Broadway version, its stage is set up in a restaurant style.
But for this Shanghai version of the stage production, stage designer Wu Biyong took a different approach and found inspiration from the orbit of a comet. The entire stage was composed of red circles from top to bottom. The audience followed the four major circles in the play. The family settings are divided into four circles, surrounding the two circles on the main stage, as if they are in the universe.
In order to support this "comet universe", all the suspension parts of the stage design do not use the theater's original automation equipment. Instead, 66 CNC hoists and a 100-meter mother frame structure are re-installed to meet the 15 tons of stage decoration and hardware parts. total weight requirement. The seats in the front 7 rows of the
theater were removed, breaking the limitations of the framed stage. Four major families were seated: "The Resurgent Flower Goddess", "The Lively and Liquorous Kuragin", "The Old Money Whose Nonsense", "The i Man of 1812" and The stage blends into one.
The stage is at arm's length, the actors are surrounding them, and the musicians are just around the corner. As the plot develops, the scenes on the stage are constantly changing. The audience sometimes becomes customers of the bar, and in the blink of an eye they become the participants of a duel. Witnesses, or perhaps guests at the ball... Such a changeable and novel viewing relationship also makes every presentation of the play full of surprises brought by the unknown.
Stepping out of the "Comet Universe" of Nine Trees, a splendid Drama School Year-End Awards Gala kicked off at the Shanghai Performing Arts World on New Year's Eve. Nearly a thousand theater fans gathered together to welcome the new year and have fun together at the nearly 4-hour party ceremony, innovatively creating a year-end celebration for the musical theater circle.
32 musical actors including Zhong Shunao and Guo Jiaxuan shared the stage to perform and interact. Annual finale Liu Lingfei and special New Year guest Ye Qisheng performed on the stage before and after midnight on the New Year, leading a group of well-known musical actors to send the New Year to the audience. The first stage blessing; 22 crews from 7 major drama labels including
Drama Music, Magic Whale Culture, Happy Twist, etc. started singing with the "Annual Song List", and more than 40 original musical numbers were performed in turn, giving drama fans Presenting a musical gala festival; the
drama market brings new interactive methods for drama fans such as drama derivatives exchange, drama makeup styling experience, and red carpet interaction. In addition, the Great World Drama Convenience Store has made its debut as the first drama-themed self-service convenience store. In the future, it will continue to bring drama cultural creations, practical theater peripherals and other goodies to polish the "new signature" of Great World consumption.
It is worth mentioning that the "Great World Drama School Year-End Award" was awarded for the first time at the party. The awards are nominated by the audience and professional theater media from the producers, performances, and actors who have performed in Shanghai in 2023. The final results are based on the votes of the theater fans. The "love" of the theater fans is the only selection criterion. Based on two rounds of nomination voting,
announced ten awards including four drama awards, five actor awards and a label award on the spot. Among them, Ye Qisheng and Cui En'er won the 2023 World Drama School Year-end Award "Brightest Star" - the audience's favorite actor and actress awards respectively.
Speaking of awards, at the end of 2023, a blockbuster musical performance evaluation system was also born in the world of performing arts, that is, the 2023 "World of Performing Arts Musical Ranking".
As the city with the most vitality, largest scale and fastest industrial progress in musical theater performances in China, Shanghai's musical theater market has developed vigorously in recent years. Among them, the Musical Theater Industry of the World of Performing Arts has developed particularly rapidly, with a clear leading position. Data shows that the World of Performing Arts brings together more than 70% of Shanghai's professional theater musical performances and more than 90% of new space musical performances.
At a time when the development trend of the musical industry is constantly rising, in order to focus on demonstrating the creation, production and performance levels of musicals in the world of performing arts, and to summarize the development of the musical industry in the past year, the 2023 World of Performing Arts Musical Top Rankings came into being. .
All participating plays must have commercial performance approval and public ticket sales. The professional selection will be based on industry data and invite experts to make in-depth judgments on the artistry and marketability of the works. Popular vote awards will also be open to the public.
The 2023 Performing Arts World Musical Chart has a main list, 4 individual awards, and 5 public voting awards. The main list will select 10 winners in each of the two series of professional theater annual outstanding musicals and performing arts new space annual outstanding musicals; individual awards will select the best original, introduced, adapted musicals and the most growing musicals; in addition Five popular voting awards will also be selected: Most Influential Actor of the Year, Most Influential Actress of the Year, Musical Song of the Year, Most Popular Creative Design and Most Popular Poster Design.
Tonight, the lively performance will continue. The "Big Zero Bay" 2024 New Year's Concert is about to kick off at the Big Zero Bay Cultural and Art Center. Minhang District has joined hands with the Shanghai People's Broadcasting Station's classic 947 music frequency to specially invite Zhang Chengjie, the permanent conductor of the Shanghai Opera House Symphony Orchestra, to lead the Shanghai Opera House Symphony Orchestra The group, together with a group of musicians, expresses their longing for a better life and future career through four chapters of Chinese and foreign classic music works: "The Sound of the Times", "The Sound of Happiness", "The Sound of Art" and "The Sound of Struggle".
Li Huanzhi's warm and cheerful "Spring Festival Overture" will bring people into the prosperous festival atmosphere at the beginning. Works such as "The Passionate Years", "Sentimental Land" and "A Glass of Wine" will also sing their expectations for the New Year one by one. Later, Puccini's classic operas "La Bohème", "Turandot" and "I Love You China" familiar to Chinese audiences may bring the performance to a climax. Finally, when the encore "Drinking Song" and "Radesky March" were played, the New Year atmosphere became even stronger.
Pour the wine and sing, wishing the new year will be sunny, lovely, colorful and brilliant.
