The Show Must Go On:

From “deadbeat” to star

Wang Jin-ying was born in Xiushui, Changhua County, in 1946. Her family was very poor, so at the age of only three she was apprenticed to a Taiwanese Opera school to which her sister already belonged. Starting out as what she self-­deprecatingly describes as a “deadbeat,” she made her first stage appearance at age six, and at 13 began performing in a “medicine show” troupe. From indoor theater performances and radio plays to television productions and the innovative Holo Taiwanese Opera Troupe, she has been involved in every important stage in the evolution of this art form.

Using her clear, resonant voice and expressive recitation skills, Wang became a household name for playing xiaodan (genteel heroine) roles. Over the course of the last two to three decades, she has shifted her focus to education as well as writing, editing, and preserving scripts, leaving the stage to younger performers.

Wang Jin-ying is shown here in promotional material for the Wuhu [“Five Tigers”] Radio Drama Company of the old Mintian Broadcasting Company (today the Taichung branch of Taiwan Broadcasting Corporation). At that time she performed Taiwanese Opera on air under the stage name Xiao Mao (“Kitty”).

This photo of actors and musicians from the Wuhu Radio Drama Company includes Wang Jin-ying seated at left. Radio broadcasts of Taiwanese Opera depended entirely on voices, which gave her an in-depth understanding of the importance of enunciation as well as singing and recitation skills.

A calendar collected by Wang Jin-ying featuring Wang (right) and Liu Ching (left) endorsing the products of the calendar’s sponsor. The on-screen personas of the two as lovers were hugely popular with the public.

The most important thing

For Wang, the format of Taiwanese Opera can change, but “singing and recitation skills” must never waver. She says that from a young age her teachers demanded that she voice her parts with clear enunciation, so that the audience could understand the plot and feel the characters’ joys and sorrows without the need for subtitles.

“Taiwanese Opera is drama through song, not just singing melodies.” She always reminds her students that they must use their voices to reveal their characters’ personalities: “The play must be present in the songs.” As she describes it, students must train their bodies to learn the necessary techniques until these become instinctive, so that as soon as they open their mouths the sounds are correct and precise.

At rehearsals, she corrects students syllable by syllable and line by line, sometimes having them repeat one sound for several hours. On the day of our visit, she has just finished 12 straight hours of class, and tells us slightly hoarsely: “Passing down a tradition is not just something that you talk about—it requires effort.”

The 1991 production of The Wrong Verdict by the Holo Taiwanese Opera Troupe, staged at the National Theater, was a landmark in refinement for performances in this genre. The actors included Wang Jin-ying (left), Tang Mei-yun (right), Hsiao Mi, and Hsu Ya-fen.

This album cover for the Taiwanese Opera Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai mistakenly shows a photograph from Luoshen (Goddess of the Luo River). Wang Jin-ying says with a smile that in those days “people recognized performers, not operas.” When Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai was broadcast on China Television Service in 1969, it was very well received and made Wang and Liu Ching popular across Taiwan.

A still from China Television’s 1989 production of The Four Great Talents of Jiangnan. Wang (center) played the role of Lu Zhaorong.

Old scripts

Now in her 80s, Wang not only teaches classes and trains performers, she continues to edit and preserve old scripts and write new ones. She only learned to write Chinese characters at the age of 70, which she did expressly to write down dialogue and lyrics on her own.

Several years ago, she inherited a collection of precious old scripts entrusted to her by a dying uncle, including the long-lost opera Lu Mengzheng. She edited the lyrics and deleted anachronistic passages while preserving the core spirit of the work. She says: “Old scripts cannot just be left sleeping in storage—I want them to wake up and get to work!”

Wang provides her edited scripts to Taiwanese Opera schools and the younger generation free of charge, without asking for royalties.

Besides teaching in drama schools and classes for students of the arts, Wang has also offered community-based courses as part of her efforts to promote Taiwanese Opera.

Wang’s elder sister Jinlian (left) was both a teacher and a second mother to her. The two studied drama and performed together from a young age, and are still close.

The 2007 staging of Emperor of Liang Jeweled Repentance by the Holo Taiwanese Opera Troupe was one of the most important productions during Wang Jin-ying’s tenure as artistic director, and is seen as a pioneering work in Taiwanese Opera based on Buddhist texts. In the opera, Wang (right) played the Empress Xi, Hsiao Mi (center) played Emperor Wu of Liang, and Shih Hui-chun (left) played Imperial Consort Ding.

Wang greatly values family life, and even today still lives with her daughter and grandchildren. This early photo of three generations of her family features Wang with her mother (second from left), her elder sister (right), and her three daughters.

Old operas, new listeners

Wang believes that the elegance and charisma of actors come from regular, routine self-cultivation. Therefore, when she teaches she not only teaches technique, but proper conduct. She also leads by example in all things, so that, for instance, she is never late for class and always dresses properly.

In recent years she has continued to collaborate with artists like Hsiao Mi (a prominent performer) and Ko Ming-feng (a veteran musician) to explore novel formats and broadcast platforms for Taiwanese Opera. One example is a Taiwanese Opera web series called Sister A Niau’s Century Old Store, which is available on YouTube. The aim is to make this genre accessible to more young people.

As our interview draws to a close, Wang says she is in a race against time to record every inspiration and pass along the techniques of Taiwanese Opera singing and recitation to the next generation. So long as people continue to learn these skills and perform classic scripts, Taiwanese Opera will live on into the future. ‮‬

Wang only began learning to write at the age of 70. Today she can often be found at her desk editing old scripts or writing new ones, leaving a valuable legacy for Taiwanese Opera. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

photo by Jimmy Lin

At the presentation ceremony for the 2026 National Awards for Arts, Wang sang out her acceptance speech in quatrains, accompanied by Ko Ming-feng on the yueqin (moon lute). (photo by Jimmy Lin)