The Peking Revolutionary Opera/title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FF0000" text="#FFFFFF" link="#CCFFFF"> <div align="center"> <p><font size="6">The Peking Revolutionary Opera</font></p> <p><font size="6">"All our literature and art are for the masses of the people, and in the first place for the workers, peasants and soldiers; they are created for the workers, peasants and soldiers and are for their use". </font></p> <p><font size="6">Mao Tse Tung</font></p> <p align="left">W<font size="4">hile most of our readings are the work of Nobel Prize Winners, the twentieth century has also produced significant collective work. It is impøssible to understand the far-reaching effects of Marxism and Maoism without examining the revolutionary ballets produced by the Great Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Origins date back to the golden age of classical opera of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Ballet pøinte was added along with new costumes and characters in a buoyant, flamboyant misture of music, dance, acrobatics, poetry, propaganda and revolutionary history that reflected the didactic objectives of Mao Tse Tung's Little Red Book. Madame Mao, Comrade Jiang Ching, was responsible for creating and producing 10 revolutionary operas in 10 years, although the work was collective rather than collaborative. In July 1964 she wrote:</font></p> <p align="center">"We must have unshakable confidence in the staging of Peking opera on revolutionary themes. It is inconveivable that, in our socialist country led by the Communist Party, the dominant position on the stage is not occupied by the workers, peasants and soldiers, who are the real creators of history and the true masters of our country. We should create literature and art which protect our socialist economic base...the grain we eat is grown by the peasants, the clothes we wear and the houses we live in are all made by workers, and the People's Liberation Armystands guard at the fronts of national defense for us amd yet we do not portray them on stage. May I ask which class stand you artists take?"</p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In her book, <i> Red Azalea, </i>Anchee Min describes her life under Mao's teachings and Madame Mao's operas:</font></p> <p align="center">"I became an opera fan. There were not many forms of entertainment. The word 'entertainment was considered a dirty bourgeois word. THe opera was something else. It was a proletarian statement. The revolutionary operas created by Madam Mao, Comrade Jiang Ching. To love or not love the operas was a serious political attitude. It meant to be or not to be a revolutionary. The operas were taught on radio and in school, and were promoted by the neighborhood organizations. For ten years. The same operas. I listened to the operas when I ate, walked and slept. I grew up with the operas. They became my cells. I decorated the porch with posters of my favorite opera heroines. I sang the operas wherever I went. My mother heard me singing in my dreams; she said that I was preserved by the operas. It was true. I could not go on a day without listening to the operas. I pasted my ear close to the radio, figuring out the singer's breaths. I imitated her. The aria was called 'I won't quit until all the beasts are killed.' It was sung by Iron Plum, a teenage character in an opera called "The Red Lantern." I would not stop singing the aria until my vocal chords hurt. I went on pushing my voice to its highest pitch: I was able to recite all the librettos of the operas:"The Red Lantern," "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy," "Sha-Jian Pond," "The Harbor," "Raid on White Tiger Regiment," "Red Detachment of Women," "Song of Dragon RIver." My father could not bear my loud wailing with the radio; he always yelled, Are you hanging yourself in the kitchen?" </p> <p align="left"><font size="4">How similar is this reaction to our addiction to soap operas? Are we being secretly indoctrinated with lookism and other values of American commercial culture?</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">The Red Detachment of Women</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu Ching-hua, daughter of a poor peasant, has been chained to a post in the dungeon of the Tyrant of the South, a landlord despot. Her eyes aflame with hatred, she will wreck this man-beast's lair at the first chance.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">The outraged Wu Ching-hua escapes from the dungeon into the depths of the cocoanut grove.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Red Army cadre Hung Chang-ching and his messenger Pang, disguised as peasants, are on a scouting mission.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">With deep revolutionary feeling, Hung Chang-ching points out the revolutionary road for Wu Ching-hua.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu Ching-hua angrily tells her dear ones of the Tyrant's heinous crimes.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">"Civil guards" force Li nationality girls at whip lash to dance at the Tyrant's birthday feast.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Hung Chang-ching, calm and dignified, in the disguise of a wealthy overseas merchant, arrives in the courtyard of the Tyrant of the South. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Hung Chnag-ching leads the peasants in opening the Tyrant's granary and distributing the grain. The overjoyed peasants cheer:"Long live Chairman Mao!" "Long live the Communist Party!" Thanks to our dear ones, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army!"</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu Chang-hua has strong class feeling as she practises marksmanship and grenade throwing under the Company Commander's instruction. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Soldiers of the Women's Company perform rifle drill.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">The villagers have woven bamboo hats for the Red Army. The armymen and people sing of the close ties between them. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu CHing-hua and a group of fighters use the favourable terrain of a mountain pass to intercept the enemy as cover for the transfer of the army's main force. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">A storm rouses the wounded Hung Chang-ching. He rises and glares at the enemies surrounding him.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">What does death matter? Communism is the truth! Hung Chang-ching towers over the enemies like an eagle in flight.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">On the pyre, Hung Chang-ching shouts revolutionary slogans and dies a martyr's death. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu Chang-hua knocks the Tyrant to the ground and threatens him with her gun.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Wu Chang-hua and her comrades-in-arms mourn Comrade Hung Chang-ching; they resolve to carry on the cause of the fallen hero and wage revolution until final victory.</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="5">Although Hung has given his life, millions of other revolutionaries arise. Forward, forward! Under the banner of Mao Tsetung, forward to victory!</font></p> <p align="center"> </p> <p align="left"><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/twenty/twenty.html">Back to Twentieth Century syllabus</a></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer">Back to Home Page</a></p> <p align="left"> </p> <p align="center"> </p> </div> </body> </html>