Chapter 21
Opera is a traditional Chinese drama. After a long period of development and evolution, it has gradually formed a Chinese opera garden with the five major Chinese opera types of "Peking Opera, Yue Opera, Huangmei Opera, Ping Opera, and Henan Opera" as the core. Chinese opera is one of the traditional arts of China. It has many interesting genres, with singing and dancing, talking and singing, literature and martial arts, integrating "singing, acting, reciting and fighting" into one, making it unique in the history of world drama. Its main characteristics, taking Peking Opera, which is the culmination of classical opera art, as an example, are: first, men dress up as women (in Yue Opera, women dress up as men more often); second, it is divided into four major roles: Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou; third, there is the exaggerated art of makeup - facial makeup; fourth, the "costumes" (i.e. opera costumes and props) have basically fixed styles and specifications; fifth, the performance is carried out using "routines".
Nowadays, more and more Chinese operas are being incorporated into popular songs and are becoming more and more popular among people. Chunxi has already planned to find an opera teacher and learn some traditional Chinese opera after returning from the UK.
Although Tosca is in contact with Chunxi and listens to Chunxi singing every day, she is still deeply stimulated every day. Such talent and such appearance really make people jealous. Even Tosca sometimes sighed that God loved this girl so much, as if he had piled all the good things on her.
And every day he was thinking whether he could persuade Chunxi to defect and let her sing opera and become an excellent opera singer. Although Chunxi disagreed, there was soon an opportunity for Chunxi to temporarily serve as an opera singer.
Tosca received an invitation to take his students to Italy for an opera performance, and the piece of music was "Carmen". The opera Carmen is the last opera by French composer Bizet, completed in the autumn of 1874. It is the most performed opera in the world today. The opera achieved success only after Bizet's death. The opera's fame was further expanded by a talkie starring American soprano Gratin Farrar and a silent film starring Charlie Chaplin.
The play mainly portrays a beautiful but stubborn gypsy girl, Carmen, a worker in a tobacco factory. She fell in love with Don Jose, a military squad leader, and abandoned his rural lover, the gentle and kind Mikaela. Later, Don Jose was arrested and imprisoned for letting her go after she had a fight with other female workers. After being released from prison, he joined the ranks of smugglers she was with. However, Carmen later fell in love with the bullfighter Escamillo. When people were cheering for Escamillo's victory in the bullfight, she was stabbed by Don Jose.
The protagonist Carmen's famous aria "Love is like a free bird" is a melody that is deeply rooted in people's hearts. It fully demonstrates Carmen's bold, unrestrained and mysterious image. After Carmen was arrested, Dragoon Lieutenant Suniha interrogated her personally, but she hummed a tune nonchalantly, which vividly showed Carmen's unruly character. In the same scene, when Carmen seduced Don Jose, she sang another famous aria, a charming song with Spanish dance rhythm. The melody was passionate and a bit wild, which further portrayed the straightforwardness and boldness in Carmen's character.
Tosca hopes Chunxi will play this contradictory role - Carmen. Although "Carmen" describes the tragedy of love, desire, jealousy and hatred, its genre is comic opera because there are a lot of dialogues in the play, which is a good opportunity to exercise Chunxi's stage performance ability.
In fact, based on Chunxi's own characteristics, she is more suitable to play another role, Michaela. Michaela is neatly dressed, well-behaved, and the desire to marry her is related to her mother's request, which in itself symbolizes a traditional love with ethical norms. And Carmen, her clothes are coquettish, sexy, and she is also smuggling. This is a dissolute woman and also a rather outrageous character.
Playing such an unrestrained role is also a big challenge for Chunxi. To vividly show Carmen's debauchery, she has to understand her and get close to her, and fully understand Carmen's behavioral characteristics. If you are too shy to let go, then the Carmen you present will be a failure. Chunxi has been struggling with this issue these days.
She couldn't understand the debauchery of those people. How could they be so carefree? How can you not take love seriously? Chunxi couldn't understand it, so naturally she couldn't play the role well.
Tosca saw all of Chunxi's distress and understood her distress. Chunxi has always been a good girl. Carmen's life experience and outlook on life and values are completely different. It is normal that she cannot understand what Carmen does.
"You can go out and have some fun. As for being unrestrained, there are plenty of women in the bar who are as unrestrained as Carmen or even more unrestrained than Carmen. You can get yourself a little drunk and let go while ensuring your safety. You can probably find the feeling of playing Carmen." Tosca felt sorry for his disciple when he saw how distressed she was, so he gave her an idea.
Chunxi pondered and felt that this was a good idea.
So the question is, which bar should she go to?
On the other hand, Manchester United has another trip to London because they are going to compete with Arsenal. Arsenal is one of the largest clubs in the Premier League. Since its establishment, it has won 13 English top league titles, 13 English FA Cup titles, and 3 English Premier League titles. It is the club that has stayed in England's top football league for the longest time. Arsenal, nicknamed the Gunners, is also a relatively strong opponent.
Moreover, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsenal manager Wenger are old rivals who always quarrel with each other whenever they meet. This match was already hyped up before the game.
Manchester United lost the last game against Arsenal at home, so this game should be considered a comeback for everyone in Manchester United, especially Ronaldo. Because in the last game Manchester United lost a goal because Ronaldo played some fancy moves and was intercepted by Van Persie, which led to Manchester United's loss to Arsenal. This time is Ronaldo's time to prove himself, to prove that he is not just good at playing fancy moves.
This game was still difficult. Ronaldo's habits were not very good. When he first arrived at Manchester United, he liked to dive, so some haters gave him the nickname "Diving Ronaldo". English football is not like Italy and Spain. In Spain, Messi's "Hand of God" goal can even win some praise; but in the Premier League, players who dive to get penalties are often judged by the media and fans in the name of morality. After playing for Manchester United for a while, it was actually Sir Alex Ferguson who brought this bad habit back.
But Ronaldo has a criminal record, so even if he really falls, people will think it is a fake fall, for example this time: while Ronaldo was running, Rosicky was following him and kept trying to tackle the ball, but he missed the ball and knocked Ronaldo down instead. There were many Arsenal fans at the scene, and the whole stadium was booed. The important thing is that the referee came over and gave Ronaldo a yellow card. Ronaldo was furious. He was obviously the injured one, so why was he the one who got the yellow card in the end?
He wanted to go up and reason with the referee, but failed and in anger he pushed the referee. The referee turned around and decisively gave Ronaldo a red card. Ronaldo was sent off with a very upset face.
After the game, Manchester United did beat Arsenal, but Ronaldo, who was sent off in the 52nd minute and did not participate in the entire game, was still very angry. As soon as the game was over, he went to a local bar in London to drink, even though he was not a heavy drinker and his professional ethics did not allow him to drink too much.
As soon as he entered the bar, Ronaldo glanced at a particularly lively place where a woman was sitting with a group of men surrounding her. She seems to be a very popular girl. Ronaldo took a few glances and the more he looked, the more familiar she looked. Isn't this Miss Nimore? And if you look closely, Miss Nimore seems to be very uncomfortable with these advances. Ronaldo did not intend to deal with the matter himself, but called a security guard nearby to go up and disperse the crowd.
Chunxi watched the people around her disperse and finally breathed a sigh of relief. She was really not used to this kind of communication, the kind of... naked communication that was all about sex.
Chunxi lowered her head and took a small sip of the wine in front of her. It was a cup of milder eggnog suitable for girls, a cocktail with a very unique taste. The main ingredients were milk, raw eggs, and cream. The production method was a bit like beating egg liquid, so it had a very dense taste. In addition to these ingredients, alcohol is also indispensable. The alcohols commonly used as bases are rum, brandy and bourbon. When drinking, cinnamon powder or nutmeg powder is sprinkled on the surface of the wine, and of course, it must be chilled.
Chunxi had just taken a sip when she noticed someone sitting next to her. Before she even licked the milk foam on her mouth, she looked up at the person who had just sat down. It was Mr. Cristiano, with whom she had filmed a commercial before.
As soon as Ronaldo sat down, he felt like he had been hit hard. As soon as he sat down, he saw a stunningly beautiful Chunxi, with milk foam on her mouth and her watery eyes looking at him like a little elk. A very beautiful girl looking at you with pure and blank eyes is something no man can resist. Ronaldo felt himself getting hard all of a sudden.
The author has something to say:
I went to Wenzhou to attend a friend's wedding, hoping to have a seafood meal... the kind that's delicious and won't make you fat. Tonight I am going to have a high high high with my dearest girlfriend
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