With the brilliant performance of Yue Opera "New Dragon Gate Inn" on stage, in recent years, many genres have absorbed interesting elements from other art forms, combined with the interests of current audiences, making ancient opera more contemporary and arousing more young people's curiosity about opera. 1. The new adaptation has become popular, attracting young fans. "This is the first time I have been so close to the audience, to be honest, it's a bit nervous." Although she has more than ten years of performance experience, recalling her feelings when she first performed in the Yue opera "New Dragon Gate Inn", actress Xie Jianghui, who played Qiu Moyan in the drama, still remembers it vividly. "When I stepped on stage, I found that I could clearly see the audience's expressions, sometimes frowning, sometimes smiling knowingly. This kind of performance experience was very unique." For the creative team of "New Dragon Gate Inn", everyone felt the same way. Is the effect of trying environmental style opera for the first time really good? Everyone is uncertain. The market has given a positive answer to this creative team with an average age of only around 30 years old. The play was launched in March 2023 and quickly formed a word-of-mouth effect. In August, an online live broadcast attracted 9.24 million viewers, especially the round robin interaction between Chen Lijun and Li Yunxiao, the actors who played Jia Ting and Jin Xiangyu, when they took the curtain call, which was widely spread on the Internet. All the audience was very engaged, and I also enjoyed watching it very much Wang Baoliang, a junior student from Hangzhou, said that she was immediately attracted by the video clip and bought a ticket. But before going, she was a bit worried that she wouldn't understand. After going there, I found that the plot was smooth and not sluggish, and the lyrics were not as difficult to understand as traditional Yue opera. Although some of the lines are a bit obscure, they can be fully understood with the help of visuals and subtitles Wang Baoliang told reporters, "What impressed me the most was the immersive interaction in the real scene, where the audience had a strong sense of participation and experience. In the future, I want to explore more fun opera works." "One scene is not enough to watch, I still want to watch it two or three times." Ms. Cai, an audience member, also felt unsatisfied. "The moment I stepped into the small inn, I heard the sound of a whistling wind, and instantly felt like I was in the desert, becoming a guest in the Longmen Inn. The interactive part was also very participatory. Different positions have different perspectives, and the content I see is also different. The actors' micro expressions are very interesting." Why is the Yue opera "New Longmen Inn" popular? Continuously achieving self innovation is one of the secrets. The Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe has been striving to convey the concept that 'Yue Opera can innovate' for many years, allowing more people to understand Yue Opera and enter the theater, "Sun Yuxi, the screenwriter of" New Dragon Gate Inn, "told reporters. Efforts to eliminate the public's unfamiliarity with traditional Chinese opera and cultivate an interest in watching it are also important conditions for gaining popularity. New theater fans need to understand basic knowledge of watching opera. After accepting the setting of traditional opera, they will gradually discover the joy in it, "said Sun Yuxi." We are making various efforts to help people who have not had much exposure to traditional opera eliminate this sense of unfamiliarity. "After the word-of-mouth formed, spontaneous recommendations from the audience added another" fire ". Last year, when it reached more than 50 performances, the overall quality of this drama was recognized by society, and many viewers recommended it to their friends and family through social networks or directly, "said Sun Yuxi. However, Sun Yuxi believes that the popularity of traditional Chinese opera has a "reasonable" inevitability. I believe that without this' New Dragon Gate Inn ', the opera market would have surely brewed works that meet the aesthetic preferences of young audiences and integrate innovative elements. 2. Continuously innovating to add vitality to traditional opera. When I was studying at an art school, I would only say that I was from the drama department, not the Yue opera class. Because when the other party heard Yue opera, they often looked confused. "Sun Yuxi told reporters that in recent years, the feeling of this kind of opera being ignored is gradually decreasing. With the increasing attention and love of traditional culture among the public, and the promotion of activities such as opera entering schools and communities, traditional opera is becoming more familiar to more people. Guo Mei is a professor of traditional Chinese opera at the School of Literature and Communication of Hangzhou Normal University, engaged in research on the history of traditional Chinese opera. She has always been committed to promoting and disseminating traditional Chinese opera in her spare time. She feels deeply about the above changes: "In the past, I offered elective courses in the field of opera appreciation and public elective courses throughout the school. In order to attract young people to the theater, I insisted on giving free tickets and offering pre viewing tours... It can be said that I tried my best, but the impact was limited. At most, there was only one person in the big classroom during each class." "The situation improved significantly after the release of the youth version of" The Peony Pavilion ", and after the popularity of" New Longmen Inn ", the changes were even greater. This year, I started to try to popularize traditional Chinese opera through live streaming, and many netizens came to consult and ask questions. New fans of traditional Chinese opera have also raised the professional question of what a 'curtain guide plate' is. Speaking of this, Guo Mei is very pleased, The number of viewers in live broadcasts is far greater than the capacity of classrooms, and more and more people are coming to learn about the charm of traditional opera. In the context of vigorously promoting traditional culture, it can arouse more people's curiosity and attract more people to enter the theater. The promotion and inheritance of traditional opera has taken the first successful step. The continuous innovation of content and form has injected new vitality into traditional opera, and the innovation of opera represented by immersive and environmental experiences has brought unforgettable experiences to the audience. Netizen Tongdouzi was exposed to traditional Chinese opera seven or eight years ago. A while ago, she watched the newly composed Kunqu opera "Six Records of a Floating Life" at Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou and felt "very different": "The stage of" Six Records of a Floating Life "is in Canglang Pavilion, and we also sit in the pavilion to watch, no longer a rigid stage. The actors and I also have one-on-one eye contact." "The story of" Six Records of a Floating Life "takes place right next to Canglang Pavilion. Experiencing the story here feels so wonderful," she told reporters. Appropriate script adaptation, appropriate environmental arrangement, and immersive performance style will make the work radiate more unique charm. She is looking forward to more genres and plays attempting immersive performances. 32 year old Nilo has been watching traditional opera for over ten years and has been exposed to immersive opera for about three years. The first immersive opera he watched was "Burning Music", created by a team from the China Academy of Performing Arts, and the story is taken from the real history of the Anxi Army in the Tang Dynasty. The performance venue consists of two levels of space, with no formal seating. Viewers are required to wear masks when entering the venue and can freely move around and watch the performance, as well as have some random interactions. So traditional Chinese opera can also be so fun This experience made him realize that immersive opera is more like a participatory 'game' completed collectively. I can step into the story and share the same breath and destiny with the characters in the play. The audience's perspective is also more free, and they can follow their favorite characters to 'enter the play' or explore in their own preferred way Niluo told reporters that he also has some concerns: "There is not much overlap between the audience groups of immersive and traditional opera. The audience who like the former is relatively young, while in the past, opera audiences were mainly middle-aged and elderly people. Immersive opera has complex terrain and advanced viewing modes, which may be difficult for traditional opera fans to accept." 3. Where to go, the changes and unchanged data of opera show that the consumer market size of China's immersive industry has reached 92.7 billion yuan, the investment scale has risen to 100.63 billion yuan, and the total output value has reached 193.34 billion yuan, ranking first in the world in terms of project quantity, consumer market size, investment scale, and total output value. Immersive theater breaks the 'fourth wall' and brings the audience and actors closer together. Creators have gained more space to explore scenery and stage design creativity, and have also expanded the boundaries of audio-visual presentation methods. The sense of estrangement brought by traditional performance forms has weakened. Performances can be performed in various places such as bookstores, cafes, shopping malls, museums, etc., which also helps to create diverse cultural consumption experiences, build new urban public cultural spaces, and bring traditional culture closer to modern life. In the immersive craze, traditional Chinese opera has also taken exploratory steps. At present, most major theater genres have immersive or environmental opera, mostly in the form of small theaters, providing audiences with a more immersive experience through scenery, and increasing interaction between actors and audiences. However, there are still some bottlenecks in the immersive design of traditional Chinese opera. In immersive performances, the audience can choose their own storyline, become characters in the play, and even change the direction of the story. This requires a change in the traditional narrative approach from plot design to a non-linear mode that involves different directions, even within the play and multiple time and space. This is a great challenge for the opera creation team. "Young people grew up in the Internet era, many of whom played script killing and secret room escape, and are accustomed to the trend of multi-threaded stories. But the creative teams of traditional Chinese opera are usually older and have fixed paradigms, so innovation can only come slowly Sun Yuxi introduced, "For example, the arrangement teacher of the theater troupe is over seventy years old. It is very difficult for the old gentlemen to understand and adapt to the new narrative style, and also to create related works. But they all have great enthusiasm, which not only moves me, but also encourages us young opera people to constantly learn and innovate." In the performance, close contact and interaction with the audience also puts a lot of pressure on opera actors. If the scenery is made more realistic and the interaction with the characters is increased, it will be very fun. However, there are standards for the hand, eye, body, posture, and every move of opera actors. Immersive style requires stepping out of these routines, and actors need to enter a new and more modern character state both mentally and physically. "Xie Jianghui introduced that many veteran actors find it difficult to abandon their original performance style and take this step. Viewers have certain technical and psychological barriers to interacting with opera actors on site. Generally, those who participate in the interaction are theater fans with a certain level of traditional Chinese opera skills, and many viewers are eager to try but dare not, "Guo Mei recalled." If there are no professional theater fans on stage, the performance will be cold. "In addition, almost all the creators and audiences interviewed expressed concerns about the popularity of immersive opera:" On the one hand, innovation in form and content can allow more people to understand traditional opera and enter the theater. On the other hand, new opera has not been tested by time, market, and audience, and the level is uneven. Many of them use immersive gimmicks. If immersive opera becomes popular, people flock in to innovate for the sake of innovation, or innovate randomly, drive up ticket prices, and criticize opera. The market can actually have a negative impact, Not only in the creation of immersive opera, but also in the creation of all immersive cultural products. In fact, the immersive creation of traditional Chinese opera is not completely transplanted elsewhere, nor is it a "passive water", but a return to the ancient performance form of opera. Ancient folk operas were mostly composed of stage plays, which were similar to outlines and did not have strict scripts or precise performance durations. Actors have a lot of freedom to improvise. The performance venue is not fixed, and any field can become their stage. The traditional Chinese opera performance style has an immersive gene, which can be adapted from traditional opera plays with distinctive and interesting characters, strong participation, and open-ended endings Guo Mei suggested. Upholding integrity and innovation have always been the principles that traditional Chinese opera should adhere to. Nowadays, facing a large number of new audiences, it is worth exploring in depth how traditional opera can retain them. (New Society)