BEIJING — It took all of five minutes for Wang Lei, a gruff veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, to start humming and stomping his feet.

The curtain had just risen on “The Long March,” a new opera celebrating the early days of the Chinese Communist Party, and a rifle-toting chorus of performers dressed as soldiers was rushing onstage at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

“We come from different places,” they sang as they took their places. “Some wear straw sandals. Some wear gowns. Some are barefoot. Some are hungry. We differ in status, but we have the same aspiration: to join the Red Army. To change the world!”

Mr. Wang, 73, seated next to me in the upper balcony, closed his eyes in bliss. “These are the songs of our homeland,” he told me at intermission. “They might be lost now, but they reflect the true feelings of the Chinese people.”