Mei Lanfang’s son Mei Baojiu was criticized after 49 years of self-silencing
As the first of the Four Great Danes, Mei Lanfang excelled in Qing Yi and also played the role of a sword and horse dan. He is known for his profound skills, his graceful stage manner, his excellent costumes, his mellow voice and his charming singing voice, which have created a large number of typical images of ancient women with different postures. The representative works include “Drunken Concubine”, “Farewell My Concubine” and “Mu Guiying Hanging up the Marshal”.
Originally, the Dan role in Beijing Opera was not as “popular” as the Lao Sheng role. Dan actors usually can not sing the finale. But since the emergence of Mei Lanfang, Dan Dan opera can sing the finale. Many people came to the theater to see the opera, just for him. Mei Lanfang’s reputation surpassed that of his predecessors, and Tan Xinpei, the “King of Peking Opera” at the Time, also said, “Nowadays, the beard (Lao Sheng with beard) can’t sing the role of a Dan!”
In 1930, Mei Lanfang and his troupe toured the United States for 72 days, and the performances were received with unprecedented popularity. His best seats were sold out 10 days before the performance, his schedule of events and welcome parties were in the press every day, his performance costumes were displayed in department stores, and a flower was named after him. The American media at the time were the first to report the great success of Mei Lanfang’s performance. One media outlet stated, “Mei Lanfang’s performances made buying tickets to the National Theatre a necessity of Life, and people no longer lacked talking points in any social setting.” Mei Lanfang was also awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Southern California and Pomona College in the United States.
Thereafter, Mei Lanfang was also invited to perform in Japan, France, Germany, England, Italy and other countries, which also became a sensation.
If Mei Lanfang’s artistic life was exciting in 1949, it was darker and blurrier after 1949, the year when the Chinese Communist Party was founded. Zhang Yihe, who has studied the opera world in depth, once said, “After 1949, in fact, Mei Lanfang’s era was over.”
This is because after 1949, the Chinese Communist Party proposed a reform of opera to ban and transform traditional Peking operas, which were mainly about “talented and beautiful people” and “emperors and generals,” and to create new historical dramas that were more “meaningful” in accordance with the requirements of the times. The Chinese government’s reform of Beijing opera was to ban and transform the traditional Peking operas, which were based on “talented men and women” and “emperors and generals,” and to create new historical dramas that were more “meaningful” to the times. In response, Mei Lanfang, who was the director of the official Chinese Opera Academy and the director of the Peking Opera Theatre, disagreed, but the matter was a nail in his coffin and he was almost criticized by the Chinese Communist Party. At the time, he said at Home, “I dare say that after 49 years we still can’t speak freely.” He finally came to his senses in this first scoop of cold water.
From then on, Mei Lanfang never took a stand during the ten years of the “opera reform” campaign. But some political speeches, he had to speak in response to the situation. He became a symbol and had to appear.
In 1961, Mei Lanfang died of heart disease, and the capital was filled with people to see him off.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, everyone in the Peking Opera world was in danger, and many famous Peking Opera artists were criticized. Mei Baojiu, the son of Mei Lanfang, was also criticized by the rebels and was forced to cut his “gangster’s head” with another Peking Opera master, Zhang Junqiu. According to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule that “men should not play Dan and women should not play Sheng”, Mei Baojiu, who sang exclusively as a male Dan, and Mei Bao Yue, the daughter of Mei Lanfang, who sang exclusively as an old Sheng, were both forced to change their careers, with Mei Bao Yue singing as an old Dan and Mei Baojiu moving to the dance team to manage the sound.
Although Mei Lanfang died early, the stamp set in his honor was severely criticized because of his identity and was branded as a “revisionist poison ivy”. Not only were the stamps banned from circulation, but all the design materials, original designs and printing samples related to him were also destroyed.
The Cultural Revolution also delayed the succession of the Mei Family‘s descendants to the family business. None of Mei Baojiu’s sons or nephews are engaged in Peking Opera, and although the Mei School has not yet been extinguished, there are no more descendants of the Mei family.
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