Eight model plays encyclopedia topics

The "Eight model plays" were the most famous of the few operas and ballets that were permitted during the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976). They all have communist or revolutionary themes.

The official versions of the operas were all Beijing operas and were produced by either the China Beijing Opera House or Shanghai Beijing Opera House, although many of them were subsequently adapted to local provincial types of operas. The ballets were produced by either the Central Ballet Troupe or Shanghai Ballet Troupe.

In addition to the traditional format of Beijing opera, The Legend of the Red Lantern was adapted to a piano-accompanied cantata by the pianist Yin Chengzong, which was basically a cycle of arias excerpted from the opera. And Shajiabang was musically expanded to a symphony with a full Western orchestra, a format similar to the ninth symphony of Beethoven.

Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, the ballet Red Detachment of Women was adapted to a Beiing opera, and the Beijing opera The Azalea Mountain was adapted to a ballet, but they did not have a chance to become as popular as their earlier versions, and the ballet version of The Azalea Mountain never got officially released.

Although these works bear unmistakable political overtones of the time when they were created, they nonetheless had significant artistic values, and for this reason, some of the works remain popular even today, over thirty years after the Cultural Revolution.

The three most popular Beijing operas are The Legend of the Red Lantern, Shajiabang, and Taking the Tiger Mountain by Strategy. And the ballet that still shows a considerable vitality today is the Red Detachment of Women, the one that was presented to Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States, who visited China in 1972, seven years before the normalization of the Sino-US relationship. This performance was reenacted in a slightly surreal form in John Adams's opera Nixon in China (1985-87).

The eight model plays were the subject of the 2005 documentary film Yang Ban Xi, The Eight Model Works.

List of model plays

The "original" eight model plays

Beijing operas

The Legend of the Red Lantern
Shajiabang (Official English title: Shachipang)
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy
Sweeping the White Tiger Regiment
The Harbor (Official English title: On the Docks)

Ballets

Symphony

Shajiabang

Other model plays

Beijing operas

The Azalea Mountain
Song of the Dragon River
The Warfare on the Plain
Panshiwan
Red Detachment of Women

Ballets

Song of the Yimeng Mountain
The Brother and Sister on the Prairie

References

Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-521-87515-8. Explores the culture produced including the eight "model operas."