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Famous Huangmei Opera Artists

On the Huangmei Opera stage, actors have unique skills. Some can hit astonishing high-pitched notes, while others can convey deep emotions well by using their eyes. If you enjoy watching Huangmei Opera, it’s essential to familiarize yourself with its famous performers.

Famous Huangmei Opera Artists

Xing Xiuniang | 邢绣娘 xíng xiù niáng | 邢繡娘 Hang Sau Neung(1749-1818)

She has thus acquired the title of "Master of Huangmei Opera". She incorporated local folk music elements such as mountain songs and ballads, thereby enriching the singing of Huangmei Opera and adding more life into it. Her singing style was enchanting and tuneful with an even stronger background of local flavor. It was this delicacy of voice that so well expressed the complex emotions in the plays of Cai Mingfeng Leaves the Inn to the audience.

Xing Xiuniang had a natural and vivid performance style. She concentrated on characterization and could well interpret the psychological traits of different characters on stage. Her movements while performing were graceful, and the expressions on her face were rich-that fitted into that special kind that has pitched Huangmei Opera to a new high and founded the development of Huangmei's stage style. Xing Xiuniang was versatile on-stage. She performed not only for Huangmei but also at surrounding areas and even places even farther with charm. Her performances allowed Huangmei to be known beyond Huangmei County, hence transforming from merely a local to a regional concern and gradually into a folk platform in the Hubei, Anhui and beyond, allowing even more people to know and fall in love with Huangmei Opera.

Yan Fengying | 严凤英 yán fèng yīng | 嚴鳳英 Yim Fung Ying(1930-1968)

Her singing was mellow and lively, with delicate performance. She absorbed strengths from Peking Opera, Yue Opera, Pingju Opera, Pingtan (a form of storytelling and ballad-singing), and folk songs, integrated them, and developed her own unique style dubbed the Yan School. With her performances, she would dig into the emotional well-being of the characters, setting out to find a perfect synthesis of voice and emotion embellished by entertaining artistic charms. The characters could take on traits that were such personalities as Tao Jinhua in Picking Pigweed, Seventh Fairy in The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal, Feng Suzhen in The Female Imperial Consort, the Weaving Maid in The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid, and Aunt Zhao Wushen in the modern play "After the Harvest". The first three were all made into films: The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal, The Female Imperial Consort, and The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid.

Pan Jingli | 潘璟琍 pān jǐng lí | 潘璟琍 Poon King Lei(1936-1988)

Pan Jingli inherited her singing style from her father. Her singing voice was simple and unadorned, yet extraordinary and genuine. She had clarity, pitch, and a voice range that was evaluated very highly; thus, her singing was often praised for its combination with forceful and soft singing. Some modern plays especially highlighted her brilliance in this aspect. When singing, she demonstrated crisp enunciation combined with an exemplary pronunciation. Pan Jingli knows how to portray different images of women and she can express feelings of roles effectively through her eyes.

Wu Qiong | 吴琼 wú qióng | 吳瓊 Ng Kwing

Wu Qiong is regarded as a highly accomplished successor to the famous Huangmei Opera performing artist Yan Fengying. She integrated the essence of traditional art with novel elements of modern art, imbuing her works with contemporary vitality. She won the 22nd Magnolia Drama Performance Art Award. She has been courageous and has opened new pathways for the inheritance and development of Huangmei Opera. With great courage, she has paved some new ways ranging from the integration between opera culture and modernization through the pull of market forces. She recognizes her historical responsibility and has exerted her utmost efforts to fulfill her "Yan Fengying" dream, to offer new experiences that are worth attention and investigation on large contemporaneous matters about opera's survival, opera's creation, performance dynamics and financing of opera, free flow of talents and development and marketing of operatic repertoires.

Ma Lan | 马兰 mǎ lán | 馬蘭 Ma Laan

Ma Lan is a highly remarkable and decisive personage in the Wongmei Opera genre, by way of notable contributions towards inheritance and dissemination. Ma Lan has a very special voice, transparent, pure, high-pitched, bright, and far-reaching. She sang plaintively and melodiously in The Heavenly Maid and the Mortal, vividly showing the liveliness and agility of the Seventh Fairy. In The Female Imperial Consort, she sang in a heroic manner, characterizing the intelligence and courage of Feng Suzhen in a very fitting way. Ma Lan was courageous; she broke through the fetters of tradition, incorporating herself into otherworks of arts for direct absorption into Huangmei Opera. In The Swing Frame, she successfully integrated modern musical elements with Huangmei Opera traditional tunes, which breathed fresh life into the ancient opera genre.

By Mia Li
Web Editor

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