Opera, theatre, and the Cultural Revolution

[China - Cultural Revolution]. [Diary of a Chinese opera troupe member].

€ 4.500,00

The diary witness of the earliest moments of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which can trace its beginnings to reforms aimed at traditional Chinese opera and theatre. Following events from 1964-65, the diary was penned by an as-yet unidentified author deeply involved in opera as a member of a theatre troupe, and possibly as a student or teacher at one of the Communist Party-affiliated opera schools.

In Beijing in the summer of 1964, an opera conference was held: called the "Forum of Theatrical Workers Participating in the Festival of Peking Opera on Contemporary Themes", it was the site of the first major political appearance of Jiang Qing, the fourth wife of Mao Zedong and herself a former singer and actress. Jiang used the occasion to deliver a speech attacking the "black line" of bourgeois thought running through Chinese opera. A year later, it was the criticism of a long-running theatre play which heralded the first visible wave of the Cultural Revolution, but it would be the opera conference and Jiang's speech which announced her presence on the political stage and foreshadowed Jiang's suppression of traditional opera, her selection of the Eight Model Plays to dominate theatrical life, and the Cultural Revolution itself.

The diary reflects the pre-1966 early stages of the Cultural Revolution, discussing the use of revolutionary singing, revolutionary plays and songs, and the films the diarist has seen. Its author, a member of the Communist Party and one apparently involved in applying the latest propaganda to productions, reviews many aspects of daily life, discussing singing lessons, reviewing performances, defending an apparently misunderstood production, hospital visits, and apparently working with an agricultural corps (likely, their troupe was affiliated with the People's Liberation Army in some capacity). Judging by its dating, the diary was simultaneously written both from left to right (the longer and more personal entries) and from right to left (largely bullet point lists detailing Party policy as it applies to theatre). Apparently unknown and untranscribed or translated, the diarist's work could certainly benefit from scholarly study, and may prove illuminating for a key flashpoint in the history of China, and Chinese opera.