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Cheng Changgeng
Anhui-born laosheng actor who led the Sanqing troupe in Beijing for decades and headed the actors' guild in the formative years of Peking opera
Backstage of a theatre troupe, an open trunk spills embroidered red and blue robes, one worked with a phoenix, beneath a jewelled headdress with long plumes; a mirror stand, a stool and a row of painted drums stand beside it, with a red curtain hanging at the right.
Also known as Cheng Chun · Zi Yushan
- Roles
- Stage Performers
Cheng Changgeng, originally named Chun, courtesy name Yushan, came from Qianshan in Anhui and went to Beijing as a young man with the Anhui troupes, later leading the Sanqing company for many years. An old-man (laosheng) role specialist with a grounding in Kunqu, he was best known as Wu Zixu in Passing Zhao Pass and Lu Su in The Gathering of Heroes, and he was grouped with Yu Sansheng and Zhang Erkui as the three leading laosheng of his day. For a long time he headed the actors' guild at the Jingzhong Temple, and colleagues called him simply 'the Boss'. In later years he set up a training school attached to the Sanqing troupe that produced Chen Delin and Qian Jinfu, and Tan Xinpei and Sun Juxian also learned from him. He died in Beijing in January 1880; Shen Rongpu's group portrait of thirteen Tongzhi and Guangxu actors shows him as Lu Su.
Life and times
Dates 1811 CE–1880 CE