Cui Yansheng
01 · Lineage & Regional School
Cui Yansheng, Male, Han, from Shenze, Hebei, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Zhuizi Opera (Ⅳ-97). The tradition is documented in Shenze, Hebei. Within the regional tradition and school record of Zhuizi Opera in Shenze, Hebei: Shenze zhuizi opera centres on Shenze county, Hebei, and is popular in Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and the counties of southern Hebei; the Shenze county zhuizi troupe is the main professional body of Hebei zhuizi opera, performing both traditional and modern plays in more than three hundred shows a year. Drawing on the Hebei volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu and local Shenze materials, zhuizi opera developed out of the costumed performance of the narrative-singing art zhuizi; around the 1920s professional troupes formed in southern Hebei and northern Henan, and Shenze is one of the main areas where Hebei zhuizi opera circulates.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1962 in Shenze County, Hebei Province. In 1977 he entered the Shenze County Zhuizi Troupe and took the second-generation Zhuizi opera artist Yang Huanqing as his master. He acquired solid basic skills and learned such techniques as the wrist flourish, the fan flourish, the hat-wing flourish and the beard flourish, forming his own performance style and becoming a principal actor of the troupe. He played Kou Zhun and the Song Emperor in The Return of the Dragon, Shen Zongrong in The Case of Lord Hai, Emperor Ping of Han in Wang Mang Pursues Liu Xiu, Xu Jizu in The White Silk Robe and Chen Shimei in Qin Xianglian, and was warmly received by audiences. From 1994 he served as head of the troupe, with more than three hundred performances each year. He began taking disciples in 1995. He has created and staged new modern Zhuizi operas including Longing for Home, A Daughter's Love and Wang Lingfen, and has played the leading roles in them. He raised funds to publish Shenze Zhuizi Opera, and published three volumes of Selected Plays of Shenze Zhuizi Opera and three volumes of the Collected Scores of Shenze Zhuizi Opera. Within the documented technical tradition of Zhuizi Opera in Shenze, Hebei: Zhuizi opera comes from the narrative-singing art of zhuizi and is named for its chief accompanying instrument, the “zhuizi xian” (today called “zhuihu”), and is widely found in Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Shanxi and Beijing. Zhuizi was formed by the combination of the narrative-singing daoing, Yingge Liu Shu, sanxian shu and zhuizi shu popular in Henan, Hebei and northern Anhui; zhuizi opera takes the tunes of Henan zhuizi as its basis and absorbs some performing methods of Peking opera and Yu opera, finally forming a local operatic genre of a style all its own. Its traditional musical singing includes “guoban”, “yinzi”, “pingqiang”, “great and small hanyun”, “wuzi qian”, “shizi yun” and “kuaiban zha”, and may be sung solo, as a duet or divided among several singers, flowing and gentle in style and easy to understand, much welcomed by audiences. Its principal instrument, the zhuiqin also called “zhuihu”, is a bowed instrument converted from the small sanxian, played mostly with portamento and other strokes, its tone melodious and its expressiveness extremely rich. Besides this it has such accompanying instruments as the erhu, erxian, flute, sheng, suona and cello. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Huilong Zhuan": A traditional play commonly staged by Shenze zhuizi opera, in which the inheritor played Kou Zhun and the King of Song. "The Hai Gong Cases": A traditional play in which the inheritor played Shen Zongrong. "Wang Mang Chases Liu Xiu": A traditional play in which the inheritor played Emperor Ping of Han. "The White Silk Robe": A traditional play in which the inheritor played Xu Jizu.
Huilong Zhuan
A traditional play commonly staged by Shenze zhuizi opera, in which the inheritor played Kou Zhun and the King of Song.
The Hai Gong Cases
A traditional play in which the inheritor played Shen Zongrong.
Wang Mang Chases Liu Xiu
A traditional play in which the inheritor played Emperor Ping of Han.
The White Silk Robe
A traditional play in which the inheritor played Xu Jizu.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
National representative bearer of Zhuizi Opera, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
Drawing on the Hebei volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu and local Shenze materials, zhuizi opera developed out of the costumed performance of the narrative-singing art zhuizi; around the 1920s professional troupes formed in southern Hebei and northern Henan, and Shenze is one of the main areas where Hebei zhuizi opera circulates.
05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage
National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.
| Bearer | Declared area | Roster code | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zhu Yuemei | Suzhou, Anhui | 03-1097 | Other regional school |
| Cui Yansheng | Shenze, Hebei | 05-2427 | This page |
| Zhang Li | Suzhou, Anhui | — | Other regional school |
06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography
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 and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。