| dc.description.abstract | During Culture Revolution, Jiang Qing, influenced by Mao Zedong’’s ultimate will, developed and promoted the ＂Beijing Opera Revolution.’’ This process resulted in the production of a number of ’’Model Operas.’’ These operas were performed on theatrical stages all over China. Model Opera were a series of modern productions that contained Mao Zedong’’s ideology and were performed mainly for political purposes. These productions were the ultimate results of a series of theatrical reform that took over a number of years starting from the Communist’’s occupation of Yan’’an . Under government influence and propaganda through public media, ordinary people’’s daily life were deeply affected by these Model Operas. The imposition of ’’three outstanding’’ production theories and principles on local operas, limited creativity and resulted in a phenomenon of culture barren known as the ’’eight hundred million people, eight operas.’’
There were only eight more significant, representative model operas produced during the Cultural Revolution.The historical background of these productions included the Sino-Japanese war, Nationalist-Communist Civil War, Korean War, and socialist construction period, covering the Chinese Communist’’s party pre-1970 history. The main characters of these productions were proletariat workers, peasants and soldiers. The themes portrayed in these operas displayed Mao’’s thought and ideology on the importance of armed and class struggles.
The death of Mao and collapse of ’’Gang of Four＂ ended glorious era of model opera. After Cultural Revolution, although China adjusted its art and literature policy, it still adhered to the overarching idea that cultural productions should convey Mao’’s ideology, which he delivered in a speech at the Yan’’an Forum on Literature. Further changes of Chinese art and literature policy came after Deng Xiaoping’’s speech in 1979 to the Fourth Congress of Chinese literature and art workers. However, the characteristic policy that art and literature should serve politics remains unchanged.
| en_US |