Manuscript Ledger for Chinese Repertory Troupe

CULTURAL REVOLUTION MODEL OPERA

Manuscript Ledger (Master Inventory): General Record of Stage Props for a traveling Chinese theatrical repertory company introducing Revolutionary Opera into its program including costs for creating silk stage props, sets, costumes and scenery, with various paper slip receipts (some loose) dated from 1963 to 1969. Oblong album measuring 7-3/4 x 10-5/8 inches, contents with 20 numbered leaves of double-sided ruled ledger; bound in brown cloth-backed plain light blue paper board with lettered pink paper label, decorative pattern endpapers, originally with ribbon-tied spine (now lost, contents loose).

Includes entries for the revolutionary opera Taking Tiger Mountain (1968), with one entry bearing signature of Wang Xiu Wen dated 12 September 1967. Includes a pink silk armband laid into the album inscribed "Mei Ying Shan" which could be translated as Huaying Mountain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjE0LDNycE8

There is also reference to a 1961 novel which the Bejing Film Studio made into a movie called Lie Huo Zhong Yong Sheng (Living Forever in Burning Flame), its IMDB title translated as Red Crag based partly on fact by Chinese authors Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan (former inmates in a Kuomintang prison in Sichuan). It was set in Chongqing during the Chinese Civil War (1949) and featured underground communist agents under the command of Zhou Enlai fighting an espionage battle against the Kuomintang. The story takes place in Huaying Mountain.