The Opera Reform of 1951

The 1951 directive on opera reform changed plays, performers and institutions at once.

One government directive turned troupes that lived by the market into units with payrolls, censorship and rehearsal schedules.

Time and place

Beijing, November 1950, where a national conference on opera met. On 5 May 1951 the State Council issued its directive on opera reform, and cultural bureaus began applying it; in October 1952 Beijing hosted the first national festival of operatic performance.

What happened

The national conference met in Beijing in November 1950. The directive of May 1951 set out three tasks, reforming plays, reforming performers and reforming institutions. Traditional repertory was to be edited, stage images cleaned up and performers re-educated, while private troupes were gradually converted into state companies. Local authorities banned a number of plays outright, cut lyrics and stage business, and performers became salaried employees.

What changed

Opera moved from a market institution into part of the state cultural system. Plays passed through review and editing, lyrics were revised, ghost plays and sexual display were banned, and modern-dress opera was encouraged. Companies acquired establishments, wages and rehearsal rules, and actors turned from star performers into salaried staff. The system raised the social standing of opera and moved the power of decision from the box office to cultural bureaus. Festivals supplied a new way of judging quality, with juries, prizes and official showcases replacing the shouts of the teahouse.

Listen for the turn

Begin with Beautiful Scenes of Suzhou, a suite of linked qupai describing scenery and customs, exactly the old form that needed editing. Then Wuxi Scene, where a similar tune carries narrative, and the content changes as soon as the words do. Finally A Bright Lamp Shines on Beijing, an old tune fitted with new words and a new tone, orderly, bright and addressed to a collective. None is an opera excerpt, yet together they show that the reform changed not only the tunes but the person the tunes served.

Related

This turn connects 戏曲导论, 京剧的形成 and 审查与禁曲.

Sources

• 《中国音乐词典》编辑部编，中国音乐词典（人民音乐出版社）— 戏曲改革条目核对，未引用
• Grove Music Online, entry "China, People's Republic of" — theatre reform and troupes checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.