THIS VIDEO is an edited excerpt of RADIO PEKING's 1971 broadcast of part of a 1966 Revolutionary Opera called 沙家浜 - Sha Jia Bang - details below": (This video is meant for educational purposes only.)
When I lived in Saigon South Vietnam in 1971, I spent some of my time when not busy engaged in news coverage, listening to Short Wave radio. Strong signals from the BBC, VOA and Radio Peking penetrated the static of the ionosphere to reach my little radio. I began following events in China in 1969 and have been doing it since. Radio Peking provided me a sense of the Maoist period in China. On July 1, 2021, China will mark with a good deal of celebration the 100th Anniversary of the founding in Shanghai of the Communist Party. These 50 year old recordings give a sense of what China WAS. It is important to recall that much of China's communist history was dominated by one man Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
The 1966 Revolutionary Opera 沙家浜 - Sha Jia Bang - was one of the operas, ballets, cultural performances reviewed and approved by Jiang Qing, wife of Mao Zedong who in essence was China Cultural Czar from 1965 to 1976. "Sha Jia Bang" is the name of a town in Jiangsu Province in the Yangtze River delta and scene of much fighting during successive wars. The story focuses on the people of the town, their devotion to the soldiers 4th route Army, the Communist Party, and their dedication to the defeat of the Japanese. The Opera was one of half a dozen productions which included
These performances dominated China cultural life as most traditional plays, musicals, as well as foreign classical and popular music was banned from China in the years after 1965. These "revolutionary" operas lost favor in the period after Mao's death but have been revived in the period after 2015.
In addition to the opera excerpt, is a short look at the history of the revolutionary anthem THE EAST IS RED, played often on RADIO PEKING at the time. FOOTNOTE: RADIO PEKING as it was known 1950-1983 was renamed CHINA RADIO INTERNATIONAL in 1993.
27 июн 2021
