Cheng Yanqiu

Cheng Yanqiu
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinChéng Yànqiū
Wade–GilesCh`eng Yen-ch`iu

Cheng Yanqiu (1 January 1904 – 9 March 1958) was a Chinese Peking opera singer of Manchu descent. He is remembered as one of the 20th-century's four greatest male dan actors alongside Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, and Xun Huisheng. He specialized in the qingyi role and founded the Cheng style (程派) of opera singing and acting. Some representative plays of the Cheng style repertoire include The Jewelry Purse, Tears in the Barren Mountain, and Blue Frost Sword (1924).