When it comes to the “queen” of Henan opera, Chang Xiangyu, many people immediately associate her with the Henan opera “Hua Mulan”, whose high-pitched, powerful singing voice and dignified and beautiful costume showcased the sometimes heroic and sometimes tender heroism of Hua Mulan, who dressed up as a man and served her father in the army, in front of countless audiences. However, such an artist, who was artistically accomplished but politically closely followed the Chinese Communist Party, was nearly killed during the Cultural Revolution.
On the road to art
Born in 1923 to a poor family in Gong County, Henan Province, Chang Xiangyu, formerly known as Zhang Miaoling, was born to Zhang Fuxian, a famous local Yu Opera artist. At the age of 9, Chang Xiang Yu’s father began to learn opera and to work in a class in order to prevent her from becoming a child bride.
At the age of 15, she became one of the top three performers in Henan opera, and in 1935, she joined the opera troupe in Kaifeng, and soon became the top performer in the troupe.
Why did Chang Xiangyu change her name? It is said that the patriarch felt that it was humiliating for a woman in the family to be an opera singer, because the status of an opera singer was very low at that time, so she was not allowed to take the surname Zhang, and she was not allowed to enter the Zhang family’s ancestral grave after her death. Later, when Chang Xiangyu met a boss, she became a godfather and began to take the surname Chang. The boss treated Chang Xiangyu like his own daughter.
Chang Xiangyu was also very diligent in her studies when she started to sing. According to the outside world, she absorbed a wide range of Beijing opera, opera criticism, Qin cavity, Henan opera, as well as pendant, drums and other artistic strengths, in order to enrich her singing and performance, and at the same time, a variety of different styles of Henan opera singing – Yudong tune, Xiangfu tune, Shahe tune, etc., fusion in the Yuxi tune, unique new accent, become a major school in Henan opera. She sings with enthusiasm, with rigidity and tenderness, and with ease; her performance is robust and fresh, beautiful and generous.
One day in May 1943, Chang Xiangyu was escorted by gunmen to sing for Li Yuelin, the leader of a youth gang who was marrying his young wife. They told Chang Xiangyu to sing one verse after another. The angry Chang Xiangyu then chose to sing the scene of “Liu Lanzhi seeks death” in “The Flight of the Peacock to the Southeast”, which is full of sadness. This made the gang leader and his men furious, and Chang Xiangyu swallowed a gold ring to commit suicide, but was fortunately rescued.
During her hospitalization, Chang Xiangyu befriended an intellectual of Henan origin, Chen Charter, who was funny and knew how to sing. At that time, Chen Charter was married, but Chang Xiangyu put forward three conditions for marriage, one is that she will not marry an official, the second is not to give others as a young wife, and the third is not because she is a singer to look down on her.
Chen Charter agreed to all of them, and married Chang Xiangyu after the divorce. After the marriage, Chen Charter simply quit his job and wrote plays for Chang Xiangyu. They collaborated on hundreds of Henan opera plays, including the masterpiece “Hua Mulan”.
Donating planes to help the Chinese Communist Party to help the invaders
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, members of the opera industry, including Chang Xiangyu and Chen Charter, were initially enthusiastic about the “new life” and performed many plays. However, as the Communist Party proposed a reform of opera, it wanted to ban and transform traditional Beijing operas, which were mainly about “talented people” and “emperors and generals,” and create new historical dramas that were more “meaningful” and in line with the requirements of the times. “After the creation of new historical dramas that met the requirements of the times, all operas encountered difficulties. Mei Lanfang, who at that time was the director of the official Chinese Communist Opera Institute and the director of the Peking Opera, had just expressed his disagreement when 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.”
Not speaking up casually did not mean that the CCP would let these opera performers off the hook. They were involved in the political whirlpool of the CCP, consciously or unconsciously, such as Chang Xiangyu, who listened to the lies of the CCP and decided to donate a plane for the so-called “anti-American aid”.
In addition to selling one of her trucks and putting aside years of savings, Chang Xiangyu also led the theater company to tour some of the major cities in China. After six months of touring, she was able to fulfill her wish of donating an airplane to the Chinese Communist Party, and in 1953, Chang Xiangyu went to North Korea with her troupe to give a condolence performance.
If she had known that the CCP was helping an aggressor, would she have realized that she was also helping the enemy by donating the plane?
Following the CCP’s criticism of Hu Feng
In 1955, the Chinese Communist Party launched a campaign to criticize Hu Feng, and celebrities in the literary and artistic circles also took a stand. Chang Xiangyu also published an article in the People’s Daily in May of that year, saying that she “fully recognized that Hu Feng’s problem was not an ideological problem, but a serious political problem. This is a major counter-revolutionary case.
The article also contained the following words: “The political aim of Hu Feng’s group is to abolish the leadership of the Communist Party, hoping for the restoration of the counter-revolutionary regime and the collapse of the people’s power.” “The counter-revolutionary activities of Hu Feng’s group are to adopt insidious and vicious covert methods and two-faced tactics disguised as progressive, and to blend into the ranks of the revolution to carry out counter-revolutionary activities!”
Chang Xiangyu also expressed support for the CCP’s revocation of all Hu Feng’s positions in the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Chinese Writers’ Association, and the revocation of his status as a deputy to the National People’s Congress, “while demanding that the government, in accordance with the law, firmly suppress the anti-party and anti-people Hu Feng.”
The above statement, if not very thoroughly brainwashed by the CCP, or Chang Xiangyu was forced by the situation, considering his own situation, and chose to compromise with the CCP.
In order to keep up with the CCP’s opera reform, Chang Xiangyu also developed modern plays of Henan opera, such as the famous play “Chaoyang Ditch” which is familiar to the whole country. in 1964, she also performed the code in Zhongnanhai and was received by Mao and other top CCP officials. However, such compromise and close following did not allow her to escape the Cultural Revolution launched by the Communist Party.
He was criticized during the Cultural Revolution and was nearly “shot”.
When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, almost all the veteran artists and famous actors of Henan Yu Opera Company were criticized and insulted during the “Breaking the Four Olds” campaign, and Chang Xiangyu was naturally in danger. She was criticized by the rebels as a “big theater bully” and a “reactionary theater authority” and had her head shaved, face painted, and paraded through the streets with a big sign. “In addition, she was paraded through the streets with her head shaved, her face painted, and a sign hung.
At that time, Chang Xiangyu was also designated as a special agent of the Central Committee. One day, she was tied up by four people and taken out to be shot, and then waited for 2 hours without seeing any movement. When she was in a state of panic, a cook approached her and said that it was just a joke, and untied her. Because of her prolonged detention, she was not even able to see her father for the last time before he died.
In 1968, Chang Xiangyu and other Henan opera performers were all sent to the countryside for labor reform, and the place where she was sent was where Wan Bohao, the son of former senior Communist Party official Wan Li, was a youth, and an article he wrote later restored Chang Xiangyu’s situation.
Because of Chang Xiangyu’s reputation, the locals did not make things difficult for her, nor did they hold a meeting to criticize her, except that when she was assigned to guard the fruit in the orchard, an old worker followed her under supervision. Later, the guards slowly loosened, Chang Xiangyu also and everyone mingled, sometimes also in the orchard where no one, practice waist and legs, shouting voice.
As for Chang Xiangyu’s husband, Chen Charter, he was also arrested and put under “mass dictatorship” when he was criticized.
Conclusion
After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party “rehabilitated” Chang Xiangyu and Chen Charter. In 2000, Chen died and was followed by Chang Xiangyu four years later, but their ordeal under the CCP was a microcosm of the persecution of artists. In fact, many artists were persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution, and how long can we deceive the “Gang of Four” by simply attributing their sins to them?
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