Abstract. This paper takes the well-known model work, the ballet The Red Detachment of Women (1971) as a case study to analyze this ballet in relation to the following issues: harmonic music language "Revolutionary Realism and Romanticism", Three Prominences (San tuchu), the relationship between music and image via the use of zoom lens, and so forth. It also examines how the traditional Chinese and European musical-dramatic elements are fitted into a framework of functional harmony reminiscent of the musical idiom of Western romantic music.