Tang Ti-sheng

Tang Ti-sheng (Chinese: 唐滌生; pinyin: Táng Díshēng) (June 18, 1917 - September 15, 1959), born Tang Kang-nien (Chinese: 唐康年; pinyin: Táng Kāngnián), was a Cantonese opera playwright, scriptwriter, and film director. His contributions to Cantonese opera significantly influenced Hong Kong's reform and development of the genre beginning in the late 1930s. During his twenty-year career, Tang composed over 400 operas and achieved immense popularity within the Cantonese opera scene. He also wrote the film scripts adapted from his own operas, directed the movies and at times acted in them himself. A few of his most famous works include Bird at Sunset (落霞孤騖 cantonese: laai6 haa4 gu1 mou6), Red Tears of an Aspen (白楊紅淚 baak6 joeng4 gung1 leoi6), Sweet Dreams (花都綺夢 faa1 dou1 ji2 mung6), and his last piece The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記 zoi3 sai3 gung1 mui4 gei3).

Biography

Tang was born in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China. Upon graduating from the Guangdong Sun Yat-sen Memorial Middle School, Tang reportedly attended the Shanghai Fine Arts School and also the Shanghai Baptist College. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tang fled south to Hong Kong in 1937 where he joined the Kok Sin Sing Opera Troupe (覺先聲粵劇團) led by his cousin in-law and one of the "Four Super Stars" Sit Kok Sin (薛覺先). Tang worked as a copyist and assistant to Fung Chi-fen (馮志芬) and Nam Hoi Sup-sam Long (南海十三郎), two famous writers for the troupe.

With the encouragement of Sit Kok Sin, Tang began his career as a playwright in 1938 with his first opera The Consoling Lotus of Jiangcheng (江城解語花 gong1 sing4 gaai2 jyu5 faa1). Throughout the next twenty years Tang wrote a total of 446 opera scripts, while 80 of those were adapted to movies. He also directed nine films himself, and acted in four of them.

See also

• Cantonese Opera
• Princess Chang Ping

External links

• The Movie world of Tang Tik-sang
• Zhuhai's Tang Disheng was true Master of Guangdong Opera
• Cantonese Opera Genius Tang Ti-sheng (粵劇鬼才唐滌生) (Chinese)