Synopsis and outline of an opera《Eight Heroine Sacrifice Themselves by Drowning》 歌剧《八女投江》剧情概要和脚本提纲
Authors: Tan Huibing 
Published: May 2023

The plot of the opera is based on a truce brutal story, which is well known by Chinese. It happened in Oct, 1938 in Wusihun River in Heilongjiang in northeast of China. It had a heavy rain and the river was flooding that block the march of the allied forces against Japanese invaders. It was getting dark and cold. The allied forces decided to camp beside the river and explore a way next morning. Eight women camped separately. Next early morning, suddenly, Japanese troop besieged the main part of the allied forces. Actually, the eight women are not attacked by the Japanese. However, the leader of the women, Leng Yun, decided to give cover to their allied forces. The surprise attack confused the Japanese. They succeeded attracted Japanese. The main comrades broke through the enemy’s siege. Eight women fought against more than thousand Japanese troops in order to cover her comrade. They just had minimum ammunition, only three riffles and several hand grenades. Finally, the women quickly fought out of ammo. And the Japanese compelled the women to the bank of Wusihun River and forced them to surrender. The women walked into Wusihun River and sacrifice their lives refused to surrender Japanese. The oldest woman Lengyun(冷云) is 23 year old, the youngest Wang Huimin（王惠民）only 13 year old. At present, I just prepare an outline of the opera. Four acts are set. After overture, a narrator shown up, who was a survivor for swimming across the river by order to explore the way to cross the river. The narrator is set to sing an aria for opening the opera. The libretto mainly focused on the life of Chinese fighters in harsh camping condition, the nature landscape and humanity besides war background. The heroine, Leng Yun was used to a teacher and fallen in love with her husband in coalition guerrillas. They had a baby in guerrilla camp during the war time. Her husband heavily wounded in action and sacrifice. In the libretto, I will set many lyric to praise homeland and humanity, such as "How happy it is to read" for children's voice choir when Leng Yun left the school, “Lovely hometown”, “Goodbye home, I will be back”, "Song of the Forest", "Spring Song", "Summer Flowers", "Song of Red Leaves", "Song of Snowflakes", "Lullaby" and "Cute Child" for new born baby. “Song of Youth” is set for women chamber voice. The Octet of “Sister Song” is specially set for eight women, "Missing Mom" for the youngest 13-year-old-girl. I believed that some of scenes will be very touching, such as "How I Want to Watch My Children Grow Up" Ji Naichen, Leng Yun’s husband sings before sacrificed, Leng Yun sang aria of "No War in Heaven " after her husband dead. A solo by the commander led the singing, and the whole chorus sang "Rest in Peace". The child sends a villager couple to foster care and followed recitative, aria, and chorus sings "God Bless the Child to Grow". Definitely, some military music is set in the opera, such as "March Song", "We Are Brave Men". As patriotic theme, a very famous song “Song of camping” will be re-arranged in the opera. The tune of “Song of camping” is originally adapted from ancient Chinese folk tune in the final sense. The last sense，”Ode of Wusi River” is set for tragic story. However, "Serenade" is set for the last night of the eight-women. There is other music I did not tell them all in brief. The lyric of“Song of camping” is documented in following appendix 2. The music score of "Lullaby" is attached in appendix 2. I will update it until it is accepted for performance. At utmost of war condition, anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters still kept optimism beliefs. For examples, the women soldiers danced around phonograph in their secret camp. They raised the national flag during army drills. They composed music to encourage themselves to keep up high morale. Utmost sieged by Japanese troops, general Yang Jingyu(杨靖宇) died and still kept a harmonica even without food and any other logistics support for many days in harsh winter. It takes times to finish the work. We should foreshadow the plot and mood of the opera with the other recorded stories and materials.