Performers › Stage Performers
Yuan Xuefen
Yue opera dan performer who led the reform of Yue opera in Shanghai from 1942, founded the Yuan school of singing and first staged Xianglin's Wife
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.
- Roles
- Stage Performers
Yuan Xuefen was born in Sheng county, Zhejiang, in 1922 and entered the Sijichun training troupe in 1933 to learn the young female roles. From October 1942, at the Dalai Theatre in Shanghai, she led a reform of Yue opera: she hired writers and directors and replaced outline-based improvisation with full written scripts, and the result became known as 'new Yue opera'. In 1943 she and the musician Zhou Baocai created a new melody that became the basis of the Yuan school of singing. In 1946 she brought Xianglin's Wife, adapted from Lu Xun's story New Year's Sacrifice, to the Yue opera stage. In 1953 she starred with Fan Ruijuan in the Yue opera film The Butterfly Lovers. She died in Shanghai in February 2011.
Life and times
Dates 1922 CE–2011 CE