Li Yuru
| Li Yuru | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 李玉茹 |
| Born | 25 July 1923 Beijing, China |
| Died | 11 July 2008 Shanghai, China |
| Alma mater | National Drama School |
| Known for | Peking opera singer |
| Children | Li Li (b. 1944) Li Ruru (b. 1952) |
| Li Yuru | |||||||||
| Chinese | |||||||||
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| Li Shuzhen | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | |||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | |||||||||
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| Li Xueying | |||||||||
| Chinese | |||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Lǐ Yùrú |
| Wade–Giles | Li Yü-ju |
| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Lǐ Shūzhēn |
| Wade–Giles | Li Shu-chen |
| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Lǐ Xuěyíng |
| Wade–Giles | Li Hsüeh-ying |
Li Shuzhen (25 July 1923 – 11 July 2008), better known by her stage name Li Yuru and also known as Li Xueying, was a Chinese opera singer and actress. Descended from Manchu nobility, she is remembered as "one of the great Beijing Opera performers" and played an important role in the acceptance of female singers in female roles (dan). Amid the Cultural Revolution, she was imprisoned from 1966 until the early 1970s. In 1979, she married Cao Yu, one of the most important 20th-century Chinese dramatists, and, following China's opening up under Deng Xiaoping, she ended her life respected as one of the few surviving masters of the dan roles.
She was born in Beijing on 25 July 1923 to Zheng Yuanlong and Li Yuxiu (1900–1966). Li was descended from Manchu nobility but had changed her name to pass as Han following the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that ultimately overthrew the Manchu Qing dynasty. Her father died when she was an infant. When she was five, her mother remarried to a businessman named Jiao Dezhai.
The family was poor. When she was 9 or 10, they sent her to the National Drama School to learn a trade and receive meals. This school had been opened in 1930 as the first coeducational opera school in China and aimed to reform education of Peking opera singers and musicians. For the two centuries before women appeared on Shanghai's stages in the 1870s, female opera roles had been played by men. Because of the association with prostitution, the work was still stigmatized and female students, despite usually being driven into acting by poverty, had previously needed private tutors. The school was a more respectable setting but Jiao adopted her mother's assumed name of Li in order to avoid shaming her father. Along with the other members of the school's fourth class, Li then adopted a stage name incorporating the generation component "jade": Li Yuru. While there, Li memorized plays and participated in "arduous" physical exercises. Her training focused on the "verdant-clad", "flowery", and "sword-and-horse" roles but covered a variety of schools. She studied six days a week and was permitted family visits on Sundays. Beatings were given for poor behaviour, slow learning, or as part of a collective punishment for a single student's mistake, but teachers were expressly forbidden from striking a student's head.
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