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Cheng Yanqiu
Manchu-born Peking opera qingyi performer, pupil of Wang Yaoqing and Mei Lanfang, who founded the Cheng school and created The Lucky Purse
Mural of the event “Four Great Dan”, which this person took part in.
In the late Qing and early Republic Peking opera flourished in Beijing, Shanghai and beyond, and actors of the dan, the female roles, moved to the centre of the stage. In the 1920s a theatre column in the Beijing newspaper Shuntian Shibao proposed Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu and Xun Huisheng as the Four Great Dan, and the title then caught on. Each of the four created new plays and refined singing and movement, founding the Mei, Cheng, Shang and Xun schools of dan acting. Mei led the tours abroad, with Qi Rushan and others writing plays and helping to plan the journeys: in 1930 he took his company to the United States, and from 21 February to 21 April 1935 he led it to the Soviet Union at its invitation and performed in Moscow and Leningrad.
Also known as Born Chenglin · Zi Yushuang · Stage name Yanqiu
- Roles
- Stage Performers
Cheng Yanqiu, born Chenglin into the Manchu Plain Yellow Banner, was born in Beijing in January 1904. Early on he performed as Yanqiu with the courtesy name Yushuang, later writing both with different characters. He trained as a boy under Rong Diexian and, with the support of Luo Yinggong, became a pupil of Wang Yaoqing and Mei Lanfang, also studying Kunqu with Qiao Huilan. His veiled, sobbing vocal line became the Cheng school, and most of his plays were tragedies, among them Tears on Barren Hills, Dream in a Spring Boudoir and Wenji Returns to Han; The Lucky Purse, with its happy ending, is the notable exception. A 1927 poll by the Beijing paper Shuntian shibao named him one of the Four Great Dan with Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun and Xun Huisheng. He went to Europe to study theatre in 1932 and died in Beijing in March 1958.
Life and times
Dates 1904 CE–1958 CE
- 1927Four Great DanTook partage 23
- 1927Four Great Dan Named in Beijingage 23