Shi Yuee

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1956 she entered the training school of the Shanghai Huai Opera Troupe to study the art. Within the regional tradition and school record of Huaiju Opera in Shanghaihuaijutuan: Shanghai Huai opera takes the maritime Huai opera troupes as its foundation and forms the feature of “Peking mingled with Huai”; because Shanghai was the centre of the Jianghuai small opera's development after entering the city, its vocal music created the new ziyou diao on the basis of the Huai diao and La diao and formed the fine and soft “Xiao-school dan singing”, sharing an origin with Jiangsu Huai opera yet with a Shanghai aspect of its own. Huai opera, also called “Jianghuai opera”, “Yancheng opera” and “Jiangbei small opera”, originated in the incense-fire opera of northern Jiangsu and spreads widely through Huaiyin, Yancheng and Yangzhou between the Huai and the Yangzi and through Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou on the Shanghai-Nanjing line as well as Chuzhou in Anhui and Changxing in Zhejiang. In the late Qing and early Republic the Jianghuai small opera pushed into Shanghai, passing through its early stages of mounted platforms, ground stalls and curtained booths, and gradually moved from teahouses and theatres onto the professional stage.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in January 1940 in Funing County, Jiangsu Province. A national second-class actress. In 1957 she took the Huai opera masters Xiao Wenyan and Xu Guifang as her teachers, studying the dan art of Huai opera and systematically learning their representative repertoire. In 1959 she joined the Shanghai Huai Opera Troupe, and under the transmission of the Huai opera masters she carried on the singing and performance styles of the Xiao and Xu schools with fidelity. In the qingyi roles her voice is pure and her appearance refined; in the laodan roles her voice is high and her bearing composed. The classic works she has starred in have won unanimous praise from colleagues and audiences alike. Her representative works include Hua Mulan, The Red Guard of Honghu, Li Shuangshuang, The Seaport, Dujuan Mountain, Wu Han's Three Kills and The White Silk Robe. Within the documented technical tradition of Huaiju Opera in Shanghaihuaijutuan: Shanghai's Huai opera troupes took in some Peking opera actors and formed the feature of “Peking mingled with Huai” in performance, making great progress. After the founding of New China the genre was uniformly named “Huai opera”. Huai opera's singing music originated in folk storytelling and work chants and is known for its ringing vigour and beautiful plainness; its main tunes include “Huai diao”, “La diao” and “Ziyou diao”, with a distinctive regional character. Through several generations of artists it has complete sheng, dan, jing and chou roles and full conventions of singing, recitation, acting and combat, and has accumulated a great body of traditional plays known as the “nine lian”, “thirteen ying” and “seventy-two ji”. Martial plays are a great feature of Huai opera, its martial technique deeply influenced by Hui opera, with such feats as the split, the handstand and the “black dragon stir” counted unsurpassed. Praised as “a lingering resonance of ancient nuo, a rare flower of the pear garden”, Huai opera “blooms in Shanghai with its roots in Jiangsu”, a flower of operatic art nurtured by both Jiangsu and Shanghai. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The White Snake": A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”. "Qin Xianglian": A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”. "Three Women Grab the Placard": A Huai opera classic and one of the founder's representative works, also often performed by several later inheritors. "Flooding Sizhou": A Huai opera classic, one of the representative works of the founder of the “Xiao-school dan singing”.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Huaiju Opera, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

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.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Shi Yuee · National Representative Bearer Archive