Every year in China the communist regime stages a long variety show on the only national broadcaster, China Central Television, ringing in the Chinese New Year with a good helping of pro-regime propaganda.
Joining the gaudy hosts and crooning singers in their annual ritual, the Spring Festival Gala, this past Saturday was a Canadian opera virtuoso, Thomas Glenn. He co-sung part of an old communist “red opera” that was freighted with more meaning than he realized, or was told by his Chinese handlers.
The performance Glenn participated in, along with Yu Kuizhi, a well-known Beijing opera singer, was a section from “Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy,” one of the Eight Model Operas.
During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s Jiang Qing, also known as Madame Mao, decided that these eight performances were the only permitted forms of art in China, and they are heavily associated with that violent and ideologically-charged period in Chinese history.
“Red songs” had in fact fallen much out of favor in Chinese popular culture over the last few decades—though the now-felled Chinese politician Bo Xilai had attempted a revival of Maoist singing in Chongqing.
As is typical in these performances, the first part of the song consists of reflections on nature: Glenn sings a few lines about snow, mountains, forests, and courage.
At about three minutes into the song the joint aria begins, with Glenn and Yu singing the title, “Welcome spring, bringing change to the world.”
And then it gets down to business. Yu Kuizhi sings: “The Party gives me wisdom, gives me courage.”
He goes on: “To defeat the bandits, I first dress as one.” This tracks the storyline of Tiger Mountain, where the revolutionary Yang Zirong infiltrates an encampment of Nationalist soldiers (inevitably labeled “bandits”) and then springs a bloody ambush. Set in 1946, the communist insurgency was three years away from overthrowing the Nationalist government and seizing power.
