Because the song team was placed in the audience, they were not costumed. So when the song got to the chorus, these guys suddenly opened their mouths and sang, which surprised the surrounding audience.
In this clip, the song is only the first verse. At the end of the song, the members of the singing team all closed their mouths and almost at once became spectators again.
"Hey man, you guys know this song?" Right next to one of the song team members, a young man with a little bit of light brown freckles on top of his nose gently tugged on the sleeve of one of the singers next to him and asked in a low voice.
"Yes. We know how to sing." The song team member replied simply.
"That's a powerful song!" The young man exclaimed.
"There are a couple of verses later in the song, only one verse here, and it's more powerful when it's sung in its entirety later." Another person interjected, "I live in the neighborhood and I've heard them practicing this song for the past few days ..."
"Shut up, I'm going to lose my lines!" Another person complained.
The drama continues on stage, and Vesuvius is already too small to accommodate the insurgents. Spartacus and Crixus, another insurgent leader, disagreed about the future movements of the insurgent army. Spartacus believed that the Roman legions were very strong and that after this battle, they had attracted the attention of Rome and that staying local would be untenable. The insurgents should have first left Rome before those Roman legions on the border were called back, gone north, crossed the Alps, and established themselves first as a free state north of the Alps, and then, when they had grown strong, they would have fought their way back to Rome and emancipated all the slaves. Crixus, on the other hand, thought that Spartacus was too timid and felt that the Roman legions were nothing to fear and that the insurgents should just stay in the area, take down the Roman cities, liberate the slaves there, and then keep fighting, and keep on liberating the slaves to grow stronger, and minimally destroy the evil slavery.
Neither of the two could convince anyone and finally resorted to a democratic vote. As a result, most of the insurgent warriors chose to support Spartacus, and Crixus was so outraged that he ended up requesting himself to be the army's rearguard when Spartacus led it northward. When the insurrection set out, he left the insurrection with a group of warriors and attacked the Roman city on his own. Instead, they were ambushed by the Romans, and by the time Spartacus arrived, they were all but wiped out. The Romans executed all the prisoners of war with cruel punishments. The insurgents were so enraged at the sight of this that they were unwilling to march any further north and demanded revenge. Spartacus was unable to convince everyone and had to take another vote. The result was that this time, everyone chose to stay and fight in Rome.
"Why should Spartacus submit to democracy when staying in Rome is a bad idea?" One spectator couldn't help but say, "What do those slaves know?"
"That's not true." Another retorted, "If only Crixus had submitted to democracy like Spartacus, there would be no such thing. And you say, 'What do those slaves know?' Those clergymen and nobles will say the same thing about us!"
The Spartacus Rebellion stayed in Italy, and under his command, they continued to win victories, but Spartacus became increasingly worried. He knows that victory is only temporary. The main force of the Romans was approaching. He kept trying to convince the insurgent warriors to hurry north, but everyone always rejected his suggestions.
Crassus blocked the northward path of Spartacus's insurgents with his Roman army. As they closed in, Spartacus marched southward with his insurgents while contacting the pirates, hoping to cross the sea and retreat to Sicily. But when they arrived at the appointed place, the pirate's fleet did not appear. So they were surrounded by Crassus' army. Crassus sent letters to Spartacus to persuade him to surrender. He promised that Spartacus could become a Roman citizen and general if he surrendered. But when Spartacus asked about the other slaves, Crassus replied, "They will return to the manor and the gladiator house to continue as slaves."
Spartacus refused Crassus's persuasion to surrender, leading his troops into a forced breakout. They finally broke out after paying a huge price. However, the Romans brought in more troops, which forced Spartacus to fight Crassus' great army at Apulia.
Before the duel, Spartacus and Crassus meet. Crassus again persuaded Spartacus to surrender on the same terms as last time. Spartacus also rejected Crassus again. He and Crassus agreed that they would all fight to the death on the battlefield early tomorrow morning.
On the battlefield, the insurgents were outnumbered and finally overwhelmed and defeated, and Spartacus died on the battlefield. His adjutant, Oenomaus, and over 6,000 other warriors were taken prisoner. Crassus ordered them all to be crucified on crosses.
The play's final scene is the crucifixion of Oenomaus and two other insurgent fighters. They were forced to carry their own crosses and erect them themselves. Then, the Romans crucified them. The two fighters were pinned on either side, and Oenomaus was pinned in the center.
"This is sacrilege!" A cleric clutched the cross on his chest with his hand and said in a low, malevolent voice.
Indeed, the scene is a clear parody of the Bible, where Jesus is crucified. At that time, Jesus also carried His own cross and was crucified along with two other prisoners on either side and Jesus in the center.
The two crucified warriors hung their heads and sobbed, and Oenomaus, who was also crucified, thought to look around and then shouted: "Why, my brother, can it be said that the loss of life can be worse than being a slave? Yes, we didn't win freedom for ourselves in the end, but we did at least win for ourselves never to be enslaved ever again! This time we lost the war, but in the long run our cause will never fail, and slavery, in which man oppresses man and man enslaves man, will surely be overthrown! The fame and cause of Spartacus will surely live on! Brothers, let us sing our battle cry one last time!"
Then Oenomaus opened his mouth first and sang: "Debout! les damnés de la terre. Debout! les forçats de la faim.."
At the sound of his song, the two crucified warriors also stopped crying, raised their heads, and sang along:
"La raison tonne en son cratère.
C'est l'éruption de la fin."
The Roman soldiers with spears in their hands looked up in horror at the crucified slaves and cried out in terrified voices: "No singing! No singing!" One of the soldiers also stabbed Oenomaus in the ribs with his lance, and blood poured out.
"This, this is a terrible blasphemy! Lord, may you send down your thunder ...," whispered the cleric, gritting his teeth.
In the Bible, after Jesus was crucified, in order to check to see if he was dead, a Roman soldier called Longinus also took a lance through Jesus' ribs and stabbed him. The spear later became a Catholic holy relic and was called the Lance of Longinus. Even made such as "as long as you hold the spear, people within one hundred and twenty feet are submissive, holders of the spear can dominate the fate of the world, but those who lose it will be instantly killed" and other legends. These legends have really fooled a lot of people in later times. Even Hitler used to seek help from it fanatically. He is also said to have been given this sacred spear at one point. However, it did not allow him to win the Second Great War.
But Oenomaus didn't stop singing. He continued to sing.
The lyrics, which had already been sung once before, were so simple in their lyrics and melody that many of the audience in the theater then sang along. Only the cleric grimaced and bowed his head without a word.
Unlike the previous choruses, this time, the song team went straight through the entire song. Of course, the song would have had six stanzas in its original history. But Joseph, who had traversed the country, couldn't quite remember the lyrics of the six stanzas. In the latter days of the Red Nation, because of the translation aspect (a couple of stanzas are almost impossible to translate into Chinese), the song is basically only sung in three stanzas. So Joseph, now that he has copied it over, is left with the original first, second, and sixth stanzas.
As the second verse was sung, the entire theater suddenly fell silent. Over the years, under the influence of Voltaire and the like, the French have become far less "religious" than they used to be (although, frankly, France, as a filial daughter of God, used to do a lot of blasphemy). But it was still a surprise to hear a song that denied religion. But because of the general dissatisfaction with the church, such an extreme dismissal of religion instead made everyone more excited. When the chorus came on, more people joined in the chorus.
This is followed by a more explicit and defiantly passionate sixth paragraph:
And by this time, the cleric had quietly slipped out and disappeared into the street.
After the song was finished, the whole theater was quiet for a moment. Then a voice rang out: "That was great, that was a great song! Can you guys sing it again?"
Immediately afterward, the whole theater was filled with such prayers:
"Sing it again, I haven't memorized some of the words!"
"Please, sing it again."
"Sing it again!"
The curtain had been lowered, and the actors and singers were going to retire, but at such a request, the group then had to sing the song again, and then again ... to the end, a full six times. Obviously, this premiere was an unprecedented success.