Xin Fengxia
| Xin Fengxia | |
|---|---|
Xin Fengxia in Flowers as Matchmakers
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| Born | 1927 Suzhou, Jiangsu, China |
| Died | 12 April 1998 (aged 70–71) Changzhou, Jiangsu, China |
| Cause of death | Cerebral hemorrhage |
| Occupation | Pingju opera singer, writer, painter |
| Spouse(s) | Wu Zuguang |
| Children | 3 |
Xin Fengxia (Chinese: 新凤霞; Wade–Giles: Hsin Feng-hsia; 1927 – 12 April 1998) was a Chinese pingju opera performer, known as the "Queen of Pingju". She was also a film actress, writer, and painter. She starred in the highly popular films Liu Qiao'er (1956) and Flowers as Matchmakers (1964), both adapted from her operas.
Xin was married to Wu Zuguang, a prominent playwright and an outspoken critic of government policies. When Wu was denounced as a "rightist" in Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Movement, Xin refused to divorce him and was herself denounced as a result. She was later severely persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, becoming disabled after a beating and was later paralyzed due to a stroke. No longer able to perform, she dedicated the remainder of her life to teaching, writing, and painting. She studied painting with her godfather Qi Baishi, a master of Chinese painting, and studied writing with her husband. She published a two-million-word memoir, which has been translated into English and Urdu.
Xin Fengxia pioneered her own style of pingju, now called the "Xin" (which also means "new") style. It has become one of the most important styles of the opera. In 2014, the China Pingju Institute created the new pingju opera Xin Fengxia to commemorate her life.
Xin Fengxia was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. When she was a toddler she was sold by human smugglers to Tianjin in northern China, and was given the name Yang Shumin (杨淑敏). She was trained as an opera performer from a young age. At that time, the theatrical world in China was controlled by gangsters. Actors, even renowned performers, had little personal freedom. She originally trained for Peking opera under her "older sister" Yang Jinxiang, but later changed to pingju. She toured extensively, and by the 1940s, her fame had rivalled well known female stars such as Liu Cuixia, Bai Yushuang, and Fu Ronghua.
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