梅葆玖

简介

Mei Baojiu was a Chinese Peking Opera artist, born in Shanghai in 1934 and passed away in 2016. He was the ninth child of the legendary opera master Mei Lanfang and the only one among his siblings to inherit the Mei school of opera art. He began learning Peking Opera at age ten and made his stage debut at thirteen, later performing alongside his father at eighteen. After his father's death in 1961, he continued performing traditional works until they were banned during the Cultural Revolution, when he shifted to backstage sound work. Following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1978, he resumed his stage career. He served as head of the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera Troupe from its re-establishment in 1995 and was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In his later years, he advocated for "symphonic Peking Opera" to attract younger audiences and participated in cross-genre reality TV shows. He is regarded as one of the foremost inheritors of the Mei school of Chinese opera.