There are many heroines in Chinese legendary dramas. Liang Hongyu, together with Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying and Fan Lihua, are hailed as the four great women warriors. Among the four famous Dan (female role) actors, Peking opera masters Mei Lanfang and Shang Xiaoyun had both created works based on the theme of Liang Hongyu, in which the story of Liang Hongyu beating the drum and battling at Jinshan, i.e. the famous excerpt How Liang Hongyu’s War Drum Caused the Jin Army to Retreat, was used as the main plot. During the era of chaos, wars and turmoil, they greatly boosted the morale of soldiers and citizens, and promoted the national moral courage.
Actors are the core of a Chinese opera. Without actors who are adept at performing skills, a good opera is not achievable even with the best conditions of production. Zhang Jianguo, who plays the role of the Chancellor Zhu Shengfei, integrates the uniqueness of his own thick and rich voice into the vocal music, fully bringing out the rigorous and orderly, flavourful, euphemistic and smooth, as well as tortuous tonal artistic features of a Laosheng (senior male role) of the Xi School. Tian Lei, a young Wenwu Laosheng (senior civil or military male roles) actor who plays Han Shizhong, specialises in both civil and martial performances with excellent singing and acting skills, uniting the spirit and the form in a standard performance.
By Zi Yun Feng (Hong Kong Cantonese opera Dan actor and the founder of the Pine Moon Cantonese Cultural Arts Centre)
This article is excerpted and translated from Chinese.