The creation of five revolutionary operas in the DPRK opened a new phase of operatic art, writing a significant chapter in the development history of the country’s art and literature.

Until the 1960s the form of opera in the country had yet to be freed from the form of changguk (a Korean classical opera).

With a keen insight into the socio-historical and artistic limitations of the previous opera form, the great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il advanced an original policy of making a revolution in the production of operas and ensured that the revolution began with the adaptation of the immortal classic “The Sea of Blood” for opera.

Under his leadership a brisk campaign was launched in the early 1970s to put an end to the old form of classical opera and create a new type of revolutionary opera which suited the emotions and feelings of the Korean people in the contemporary times.

Comrade Kim Jong Il set it as the orientation of creative work that the composers create songs which would be sung even centuries later and helped them make songs stanzaic.

When some creative workers produced songs with traces of aria and recitative, he personally revised their words. And he listened to many songs rendered by singers and gave advice on how to improve them into excellent songs.

In addition, he proposed introducing pangchang , an off-stage form of vocal music, so as to expand the representational scope of opera and diversify the mode of vocal representation.

Under his leadership the creative workers could vividly describe the innermost feelings of major characters in the revolutionary opera “The Flower Girl” by adopting various forms of pangchang like female duet, mixed trio, female pangchang and mixed pangchang .

During the days when the five revolutionary operas were created, a new way of operatic development of augmenting the work’s appeal by introducing three-dimensional revolving stage and different other means was produced, a Korean style of mixed orchestral music was invented and dance was developed as an essential representational means.

The revolutionary operas “The Sea of Blood,” “The Flower Girl,” “Tell O Forest,” “The Story of a Nurse” and “ Song of Mt Kumgang”—all national in form and socialist in content—were created as works representative of the renaissance in the 20th century, causing a great sensation among the Korean people and shaking the world opera circles.

More than half a century has passed since the five revolutionary operas were produced. But they still retain their emotional influence and vitality as precious assets of the art and literature of the DPRK.

Kim Tae Song