Performers › Stage Performers
Niu Guiying
Jin opera qingyi performer and founder of the Niu school, who co-starred with Ding Guoxian in the 1955 film of Beating the Princess
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 Born Yueying
- Roles
- Stage Performers
Niu Guiying, born Yueying in June 1925 in Xiaozhangyi village, Yuci, Shanxi, entered the opera world at nine and trained in qingyi roles for virtuous women. Over more than half a century she performed some 120 plays, and her lingering, veiled 'cloud over the moon' voice gave rise to the Niu school of qingyi singing in Jin opera. In 1955 she and Ding Guoxian starred in the film of Beating the Princess, and in the early 1960s the two took Walking Through the Snowy Mountain to Beijing. She served as deputy and later honorary head of the Shanxi Jin Opera Theatre and as head of the Shanxi Opera School. She died in Taiyuan on 18 June 2013.
Life and times
Dates 1925 CE–2013 CE