Wang Shiyao
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
A National First-Class Actor and an expert receiving the special government allowance of the State Council. Former director of the Zhejiang Kunqu Opera Troupe. At the age of eight he entered the Guofeng Suzhou Opera Troupe with his parents, first studying sheng roles and later changing to fu and chou (secondary and clown) roles, receiving direct instruction from his father Wang Chuansong and other masters of the "Chuan" generation. His performance style is distinctive, and the characters he portrayed are humorous without falling into vulgarity, earning him the name of the "fu and chou master of southern Kunqu." His representative works include both traditional zhezixi and full-length Kunqu operas led by fu and chou roles; his performances in Fifteen Strings of Cash, Xiyuan Ji (Record of the Western Garden) and such zhezixi as You Dian (Visiting the Hall), Xie Zhuang (Writing the Complaint), Shuo Qin Huihua, Huozhuo (Capture Alive) and Qingyi (Summoning the Doctor) have been highly praised by his peers. He successively collated and directed traditional plays such as Jiaoge, Lulin, Shihou Ji (The Lion's Roar) and Naihe Tian, and trained successors including Tang Jianhua and Zhu Bin.
Honors & Recognition
Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1939, died in May 2020, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. National representative bearer of Kunqu Opera, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
- Kun Qu Opera Ⅳ-1
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。