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The revolutionary model opera was a unique creation in China and represented the only significant musical activity of the Cultural Revolution. This study on the revolutionary model opera shows us how music has been hijacked and manipulated by political power during the Cultural Revolution. The revolutionary model operas had to serve ideology, gather the masses, monitor them, impose the ideas of the Revolution and build a new social memory. The time of the ceremony drama was imposed on them, and all this under the control of political power. This article, however, shows that musicians, certainly requisitioned, have worked in the creation of this new music based on traditional music. Even Chinese musicology has continued, in a different form, musicians have indeed collected, analyzed and worked on the composition of new musical creations. They had permission from power since the power needed them.
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