When the TV drama series Dream of Red Mansions gripped the Chinese nation in 1987, it was for its music as much as its acting. So much so, that a concert commemorating the series was recently held in the People’s Great Hall in Beijing.
Hosted by Zhang Guoli, who is connected to the 1987 TV series through his wife, who was a principal actress, the concert was performed by the Chinese Film Orchestra, headed by the conductor Zhang Lie. The music was composed by the internationally famous Wang Liping.
The intention was to have as many of the original actors, singers and technical crew reunited, even though some of them are no longer resident in China. A key member of the team was Weishen Xu who is now residing in Canada. He was the original chief recording engineer in 1987 and was asked to serve as the director for the live sound and the concert recording.
He ensured that this was done to the highest possible quality, with Merging Technologies playing a key part in this process. The live sound and simultaneous recording of the concert used a 40-track DXD system featuring Pyramix MassCore with Horus converters. In order to be sure that everything was captured on the night, there was a back-up Pyramix Native system recording 112 tracks of PCM from the live sound console. This was connected to the console via Madi and was able to use additional microphones. As always with video productions, microphone positioning was compromised with the DXD recording so the PCM was better able to reproduce the events of the evening. The rest of the audio team came from Dream Formula, the main dealer in China for Merging Asia.
Dream of Red Mansions (sometimes called The Story of the Stone) is an extremely important piece of 18th century Chinese literature. The 36-episode TV series was the most successful TV series in China and has been repeatedly broadcast more than 1,000 times and has been accepted as a classic by multiple generations. There are 12 songs used in the TV series, which have been massively popular in the years following the original broadcast on CCTV. This TV drama had over 154 actors/actresses and there were over 100 of the original cast members in attendance.
Many people came in from around the globe to attend the anniversary and this was recognised by the government that permitted the anniversary to occur at the People’s Great Hall which was also reserved for Luciano Pavarotti in 1986.
The concert opened with the piece ‘A Lovesick Knitted Brow in Vain’, performed again by the lead singer from the 1987 TV series, Chen Li, who has been living in Canada. This was followed by her masterful interpretation of ‘Song of the Burial of Flowers’, which moved many of the audience members to tears and was received with a long ovation – representing their affection for both the performer and the music.
During the commemorative concert, Zhang Hailing, the voice actor for Chen Xiaoxu (who played the character, Lin Daiyu) led a group of actors from the original TV series in a recitation of ‘House Jia’s reception of Lin Daiyu’.
When the actor Ouyang Fenqiang, who played the character Baoyu, stated ‘Today, it is as if we have been reunited once again after a long journey’, there was not a dry eye in the house.
‘I was the original chief recording engineer for the TV series 30 years ago, and most people know me because of my work on the series and its 12 songs,’ says Weishen Xu. ‘They stand the test of time well and the original recordings have recently been transferred to DSD and still sound great. This was obviously a hugely nostalgic event that needed to be delivered in the best possible quality. In China, just as elsewhere, there was never any doubt that this had to be ..’
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