Li Shiji

Biography

Li Shiji, a Chinese Peking opera artist of Hakka descent, was born in 1933 in Suzhou and raised in Shanghai. Her father, Li Yizun, was a prominent Shanghai businessman and advisor to the politician Li Jichen. Growing up in a household that loved Peking opera, she learned singing from her father, who performed elderly female roles. In 1945, her father introduced her to the great artist Cheng Yanqiu, who adopted her as his goddaughter. She studied singing with qin player Tang Zaixin. In 1950, she enrolled at Shanghai Second Medical College but dropped out in 1952 to form her own troupe and move to Beijing. Despite Cheng Yanqiu's wish for her to study medicine, she insisted on pursuing art and became his formal disciple. In 1955 she joined Ma Lianliang's troupe, which merged into the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe in 1956, where she became famous through collaborations with Ma Lianliang, Tan Fuying, and Qiu Shengrong. She transferred to the China National Peking Opera Company in 1979. Li Shiji was a leading representative of the Cheng school of Peking opera and regarded as an outstanding inheritor of Cheng Yanqiu's art. She served on the Fifth through Ninth National Committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and was a Standing Committee member of the Tenth. She was also Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. She won a silver medal at the World Festival of Youth and Students. She passed away in Beijing on May 8, 2016, at the age of 83.