Regional Operas · Chinese National Opera (Minzu Geju) · SE10197

The Red Leaf River

A four-act opera of a Taihang mountain village

Introduction

Written by Ruan Zhangjing from his time in Chiyehe village, Lingchuan, and first staged at Yetao in October 1947

The Red Leaf River is a four-act national opera by Ruan Zhangjing, drawn from what he saw while working in Chiyehe village in Lingchuan County. He finished the first draft in She County on 8 September 1947, and the opera was first staged in October that year at Yetao in Wu'an. There was no composer at first, so Gao Jieyun and Zhang Jinde, heads of the Taihang Troupe, set it to local folk tunes with help from blind folk musicians of Wuxiang, and Liang Hanguang later re-arranged the music. The story is set in the village between 1930 and 1946: the family of Wang Hezi is oppressed by Lü Chengshu, his wife Yanyan drowns herself in the river, and Hezi returns only after fourteen years away. In July 1949 the opera was performed in Peiping during the first national congress of writers and artists, and in May 1958 the Central Experimental Opera Theatre staged it at the Tianqiao Theatre.