Raid on the White Tiger Regiment

Raid on the White Tiger Regiment (Chinese: 奇袭白虎团) is a Chinese revolutionary opera and one of the eight "model plays" permitted during the Cultural Revolution.[1][2] Set during the Korean War, it depicts a victory of the Chinese and Korean communists over South Korean and American forces.[3]

Image from a performance
Raid on the White Tiger Regiment
Traditional Chinese奇襲白虎團
Simplified Chinese奇袭白虎团
Image from a 1967 performance of Raid on the White Tiger Regiment
Image from a China Pictorial article on the opera

Production

Music for Raid on the White Tiger Regiment was composed and arranged by Gong Guotai (born 1946), incorporating some aspects of Korean folk music;[4] the script was collaboratively written in 1957 by four members of Shandong Provincial Peking Opera Troupe, and was first performed by members of the People's Volunteer Army.[5] It received its first major staging in 1964 at a national Peking opera festival;[6] it was revised under Mao Zedong's instructions in 1965–66.[7][8][9] The Cambridge History of China noted that continuous revision of the model operas tended to remove any "shades of grey" from the moral depictions of the heroes and villains, and to remove any trace of "bourgeois" behaviour from the heroes.[10]

Synopsis

July 1953: during the Korean War, Yang Yucai leads a People's Volunteer Army raid against the White Tiger Regiment of the South Korean Capital Mechanized Infantry Division, who are planning to sabotage peace talks by invading the North.[11] With the help of a Korean girl, Sister Choi, the Chinese troops destroy Tiger Regiment HQ and set the conditions for a successful counterattack, in cooperation with the Korean People's Army.[12]

Performance

Deng Xiaoping refused to watch Raid on the White Tiger Regiment in 1964, instead insisting on a performance of Sisters Exchange Bridegrooms, perceived as a slight on the Gang of Four.[13]

In 1972, it was made into a film by the Changchun Film Studio.[14][11]

References
  1. Service, British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring (October 17, 1974). "Summary of World Broadcasts: Far East". Monitoring Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation – via Google Books.
  2. Denhardt, Janet Vinzant (February 17, 2007). The New Public Service, Expanded Edition: Serving, Not Steering. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9780765621818 – via Google Books.
  3. West, Philip; Levine, Steven I.; Hiltz, Jackie (June 3, 2015). United States and Asia at War: A Cultural Approach: A Cultural Approach. Routledge. ISBN 9781317452935 – via Google Books.
  4. Pang, Laikwan; Clark, Paul; Tsai, Tsan-Huang (January 26, 2016). Listening to China's Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities. Springer. ISBN 9781137463579 – via Google Books.
  5. Chen, Xiaomei (January 31, 2002). Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824861360 – via Google Books.
  6. Jian, Guo; Song, Yongyi; Zhou, Yuan (July 23, 2015). Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442251724 – via Google Books.
  7. Chingchih, Liu (July 20, 2010). A Critical History of New Music in China. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN 9789629969707 – via Google Books.
  8. "eClassical - Gong: Raid On the White Tiger Regiment (Orchestral Highlights)". www.eclassical.com.
  9. "GONG: Raid on the White Tiger Regiment (Orchestral Highlights)". www.naxos.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-17. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
  10. MacFarquhar, Roderick; Fairbank, John K.; Twitchett, Denis Crispin (November 29, 1991). The Cambridge History of China: Volume 15, The People's Republic, Part 2, Revolutions Within the Chinese Revolution, 1966-1982. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521243377 – via Google Books.
  11. "Shandong Peking Opera Theatre Raid on the White Tiger Regiment - NCPA CHINA". en.chncpa.org.
  12. Rabinowitz, Paula; Barraclough, Ruth; Bowen-Struyk, Heather (September 16, 2015). Red Love Across the Pacific: Political and Sexual Revolutions of the Twentieth Century. Springer. ISBN 9781137507037 – via Google Books.
  13. Service, United States Foreign Broadcast Information (February 17, 1979). "Daily Report: People's Republic of China". National Technical Information Service – via Google Books.
  14. Tsioulcas, Anastasia (April 26, 2013). "Amazingly Odd Operas From Revolutionary China" – via NPR.
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